Fishing at the bottom of the world: a Nat Pagle experience
by DougWalkerJumpScareOnMyGenital
Summary: Nat Pagle is the one of the most renowned and achieved fisherman and drinkers on Azeroth, but when an old friend talks the since washed up Nat into sailing to the new continent known as Pandaria, Nat finds his begrudged love of fishing rekindled, and soon finds himself putting up to the task of angling a fish that is more legend than real; a feat that will push Nat past his limits.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: I wrote this story using some bugged version of Word that refused to spot typos for me. Being a lazy fuck, I have not proof read this story yet so I apologize for any typos you might encounter. Also, I wish to apologize for the editing of this beast. All my editing and major paragraph/section breaks got obliterated by when I uploaded the story. Sorry about that._

_I began writing this sometime ago (last October, in 2014) as I wanted to do one last MoP-themed story before WoD. Being a lazy fuck, I never finished it until just recently, and it spawned into a 50,000 word god damn novella somehow. I'm not happy with the very beginning, but I think the story developed and finished quite well. Hope you enjoy lol1!11_

He lifted the dark clay jug to his dry, but still sticky from jungle heat lips. Small shingles of stuck together dirt broke off and plummeted back down to the sandy ground below as he swigged the last contents of the foul-tasting brew. Belching, he tossed it aside; it landed with a dull clunk next to half a dozen other jugs, causing a few more pieces of caked dirt to pop into the air as the new jug settled next to its new brethren.

And then, with the only a slight, faint jerk on his line to alert him, he flicked his rod, setting the hook, belched again, and reeled hard. The line shot back out, the whine of his line hitting a steady, continuous ear-splitting note as the fish swam further out to the sea. Leaning himself back on his improvised seat of a fallen dead tree, he let the fish play its game for a few moments before bringing the rod in tight, stopping the fish in enough water that it would feel content not to tug hard enough to break the line.

He belched once more, and began slowly working the fish into him, inch by inch. The fish resisted with every revolution of his reel, taking the line back out into the water, wearing itself down. Finally, after intense minutes of carefully letting the fish tire out, he had it within fifty yards of the shore. He licked his lips and with one hand off the rod, reached down to scoop up a new, full jug. Suddenly, however, the fish jerked hard, and the loud _'twap!' _that came and died in an instant preluded the way that his line, just a moment before tight and straight, was now slack and curled in loose loops, the end of it frayed and missing the hook.

He belched one last time as he twisted the cork off of his jug with a hollow _'pop!'_. It seemed like a huge one, too. Oh well.

Nat Pagle, master fish and booze enthusiast, choked down another series of gulps before setting his brew back down and reeling in his line. Troll beer, while fairly strong, was absolutely awful. It would get you nice and licked, that was for sure, but he heard they fermented it using the fecal matter of jungle creatures or, if the truly grotesque rumor was to be held true, their _own_ fecal matter. Still, to Nat, drink was drink and he'd built up either a tolerance or a lack of mind to whatever it was the trolls brewed, and with the raise-fall-raise again-fall again of the neighborhood Gurubashi trolls stores of the acrid jugs, taken by victorious invaders of the Horde and Alliance, were in high supply and very low demand.

Which meant, for Nat, he could afford all the drink he needed on his meager salary of dwindling royalties and days spent motionless on the hot Stranglethorn shoreline.

He and fishing had an odd, mixed relationship. He used to do it when he was younger, just for the hell of having something to do. He even earned a little money, selling some of his catch. For him, though, fishing had mostly been an excuse to not have to do anything more physically demanding, and having a reason to get absolutely plastered on whatever he could find was only the icing on the cake.

He began working a new hook onto his line, this time breaking out one of his secret weapons; a short length of iron wire, which he tied to the end of his line, and then worked the hook onto the other end. Close examination of the thin twine had shown him that whatever just broke it didn't _break _the line, but had _cut _it. He reckoned he must have hooked it in the very corner of the mouth, away from its teeth, but as he pulled it towards the shore and the fish was forced to straighten out lax, head-first, the line slipped into its field of bite, and the would-be hapless catch got away. He highly doubted it'd bite again, but if it did, he'd be ready for the little bastard.

It was only by unintended chance that he ever got very good at his craft. They say the greatest fisherman is the man who can sit still the longest, and Nat had that part down in spades. Then, somehow or another, he just began picking up tricks, techniques and other know-hows that increased his ability to haul in fish. Whether it was through some subconscious desire to improve himself or he just had one hell of a memory, he- belching again- would never really care.

Setting the hook with a particularly bloody flank of meat, Nat cast back out and settled himself into his tree. He was still sober enough to make out the swaying movements of his cork bobber far out in the water, but before soon he'd put a fix to that. Raising the jug back to him mouth for yet another swig, he was suddenly interrupted by the crunching of hot sand under heavy foot and a voice that shouted out; _"Nat! Hey, Nat!"_

Nat lowered the jug, and glanced off to his side, as an old, but recently all-too familiar, friend approached him. "Nat!" he said again, reaching Nat's tree-seat.

Nat corked the bottle again and set it back down, this time to the side of his legs closest to his friend, in a subtle fisherman's invitation to sit down and drink. The man obliged and sat down, taking his own swig of the foul tasting liquid and shivering only a little as he downed it past his short, dirty beard. "Nat." he said again. Nat acted like nothing, just focusing on the bobbing of his lure, but internally he was annoyed. He knew what was coming.

"We're leaving soon." His friend said, letting the clay jug drop to the sand. "C'mon, now. This's your chance to fish in a place no one, no outsider at least, has fished in… well, a long time!"

The excitement in his friend's voice was matched only by the faintly implied plea that Nat join along. Nat jerked on his line, in a mock show of being enveloped in his fishing. Yup, it was quite unintended he ever get all that good at fishing, but somehow or some way he did, and suddenly everything changed. He found himself, slowly at first but it didn't take long to really get going, fishing in more and more places. Widespread at first, the occasional jaunt down to the Loch in the Dwarven Lands, deep-lake fishing for pike that was longer than he was, or fishing for reef shark off the coasts of Westfall. But then, 'widespread' began to meet with 'exotic' and even 'dangerous', and part of him that he didn't want to admit he had- enjoyed it.

Suddenly he found himself in expeditions into places like the Dustwallow, fishing in smoking mires and rivers for catfish so big and dauntless, you could gut them and find dozens of black whelping corpses and even the occasional small drake or two, or miles out in the screw-all Barrens, fishing shallow pools for fish no one else had ever caught before, documenting the species in between ducking out of view of patrolling centaur and plains raptors. Though he'd never admit it, he was proud it say he landed a half-ton river bass from the Felwood, a place no one expected any normal fish to live anymore, let alone ones so giant.

Mingled in between all these journeys and expeditions came the eventual notoriety and then the fame. With his name out in the world, he signed a stack of contracts every now and again with a few goblins and before he knew it, he was swimming in gold from royalties made from selling showy, expensive and relatively ineffective fishing gear, all branded with his namesake. A more noble fisherman might have refused as much, but Nat was not that kind of fisherman. Still, as much as he hated it, he eventually gave up the fame and fortune racket, told the gold-pinching goblins to beat it and before he knew it, he was back to doing what he loved: sitting on his butt getting drunk and catching the now-and-again fish. His fame slowly deteriorated and his name fell in and out of notability, while his cash reserves started to sink as his adventurous side forced him into more and more world-wide trips, fishing in places he had no business coming out alive of.

And now he was here, sitting in Stranglethorn, drinking down the last of his crap-beer and fishing in a place that, some twenty years ago, would have had him timid and feared out of his wits but had long since become just another little place to sit down, fish and get drunk. But now, an old friend and angler-buddy sniffed him out and was eager to recruit him on some fishing expedition to some island that, prior to just months ago, no one even knew existed. He belched again as he felt his line jerk suddenly in his hands, and he set the reel and began working the hook.

"John." He finally said, his sun and alcohol cracked lips forming the words even as his mind and hands were busy with the catch, "I've had enough running around."

"Bah." John said, lifting the jug to take another sip despite his mouth's pleas to never pass the fetid brew past it ever again, "This ain't no runnin' around, Nat. We got a clear goal in mind, and there's hospitality and civilization waiting fer' us the whole down way through."

Nat had the hook set and was absent mindedly playing with the fish again, working to wear it out for an easy reel-in, even as his arm reached out to grab his jug back and take another deep swig. "I'm fine right here, John." He said, for what he felt was around the dozen'th time. John had been pretty persistent in trying to track down and convince Nat to go, and he knew John well. The man once spent two days holding in a fish on his line, even throughout the night in a river swarming with crocolisk. The guy was used to getting what he was after.

John took the outstretched jug and drank again himself, wiping his sweat-alcohol doused mustache off with the back of a muddy hand. "I mean it, Nat. Really. We can see fish no human n'er orc n'er troll n'er whatever has seen in thousands of years." He passed the jug back, and with a thought, added "And they've got beer, too!"

Nat had heard some of the rumors, but as long as he had a place to fish and a jug to drink, he'd be alright. The fish was tiring quickly, and something in the back of his mind lit up; it was the fish from before, and this time, it was _on_. Nat worked it, letting it run out but always keeping it within view and never letting it get near any of the rolling, whirling pools being created by water passing over large, submerged rocks. He chugged deep this time, a sign he wanted to end the conversation quickly, and as he downed the last of the vile concoction, he pulled one last time, breaching his catch up into the shallows and then finally onto the shore. A small, small reef shark. Smallest he'd ever caught. Hell, smallest he'd ever _seen_.

He tossed the jug behind him and watched the small shark flop helplessly on the sand before him. Sighing, he flipped it onto his foot, reached down to pull out both of his hooks, and then gave it a kick back into the water, where it quickly disappeared back into the dark blue ocean. Beside him, John stood up. "Alright, Nat." he said in defeat. "We're leaving tonight, but take it your way." He began to walk, leaving Nat's small camp.

Nat just sat silently, re-baiting his bent, rusted hook with the last and pathetically tiny piece of meat he had left. He reached for another jug, but found nothing but sand and mushy dirt.

"They offer the booze for free, too, to any fisherman." John said, his back still turned, trailing off into the rustling foliage of green, arching jungle plants. On his lone tree, Nat cursed, kicked a bit of sand, ripped the small hunk of meat off his hook and tossed it into the water.

The sound of long-empty jugs tumbling on top of each other was all John needed to hear to know that Nat was following him.

Nat and John made their way back to the large port city of Booty Bay, a nest of trade and sin that Nat had camped himself only a couple of miles out from. Half for the convenience of having a city close-by to restock on bait and alcohol and half for the fact that proximity to the city tended to ward away beasts and pirates; mostly.

Nat, sticky and filthy from months or perhaps even years spent baking in the jungle steam was a contrast to the cleaned, well-prepared men he now joined with in a small cozy room of a Booty Bay inn. John lead him in, and as an introduction, announced "Men, I give you my end of the bargain; _the_ Nat Pagle."

"Bargain", Nat thought. Now he knew just why John was prepared to search through miles of raptor and stink-filled jungle to find him and drag him along on this 'expedition'. All the same, he gave a dirty-faced nod to the men and sat down in a chair offered to him.

"Ol' Nat Pagle, is it?" another man chided in. "Looks like you kept your promise, Big Hook." He said, a twinkle in his eyes at John. "And looks like you haven't been out of the jungle in a year, Nat." he said, turning back. "What happened to the Pagle I used to know, who'd hop at a chance like this?"

Nat shrugged. "I killed him. With beer."

The draw a laugh from the men, five of them, counting Nat and John. Nat recognized the one he was speaking to, Byron Welwick. The man cut his teeth in deep-ocean fishing off the coasts of Azeroth and then went off to Northrend to all but pioneer the art of fishing cold water cod and salmon, literally feeding the entire Alliance forces. Behind him, however, was a man whose weather and sun tarnished skin was stretched tight over bone, at least where age and countless, unmerciful wear hadn't caused it to wrinkle and sag like military badges of fishing experience. He was Arnold Leland, the _father_ of modern-style fly fishing. The third man, Nat didn't recognize, but he was finely dressed and a bit bookish looking, so Nat assumed he was either some kind of scholar interested in recording whatever new fish awaited them, or was one of the men funding this wild chase halfway down the globe.

"Well." Byron continued, shifting his sit in his chair. "You've drug yourself up, so you must be at least a little interested."

"Keep talking, and we'll see." Nat responded.

With an affirmative nod, Bryon continued, "Well, you might know that a few months ago, military forces of the Horde and the Alliance landed shore on an unmapped island." Nat gave an uninterested cock of his head in recognition. "Much of what they found was kept hush-hush, but as scouts who landed on the island returned to give reports and were dismissed from service for the time being… well," he said, a smirk edging up his face, "you know how the whole 'you didn't hear it from me, but…' goes.".

Nat gave another nod, this time to imply he still wasn't very interested in the proposal.

Bryon continued unhindered, though. "Now we've heard there's not just an entire race of other people living on the continent, but they have an entire culture, an entire _civilization_."

"So?" Nat finally blurted out, his disinterest blatant.

"So." Began Byron, "One of their biggest means of supporting themselves comes from the sea. They fish, and they have an untold number of new both new fishing techniques _and_ new fish. This is both lucrative from a learning point of view _and _a money making one."

Fish and money; the two best things about being an angler, next to the booze. Nat kept up his cool-guy attitude but between the promises of adventure, cash and booze, his meticulously built-up wall of nonchalant carelessness was beginning to crumble. Fast.

Shifting in his chair in a way that he unsuccessfully attempted to hide his growing interest with, he questioned, "Alright, so just where in the world _is_ this place?"

Byron cracked a smile. Slamming out a map onto his knees, he fingered Nat to take a closer look, to which the latter slowly leaned forward to peer onto the map. It was a standard world map of Azeroth. Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Northrend to the North (of course), and a few other land masses and islands here and there, but now there was a large continent-sized scribble at the south of the map, in between the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Written upon it was one word that Nat both didn't recognize and knew he probably couldn't pronounce. "_Pandaria_."

"We want fish from all over the continent, if possible." Bryon stated. "But in specific you'll be heading to the very southern tip of the continent, here." He jabbed at it the very southern tip of the new land. "It's said that here, the land dips down incredibly deep towards the ocean. So deep, in fact, that it's geographically believed to be one of the quite literally the lowest ground levels of the entirety of Azeroth."

At this, Nat's jaw set in a way that any angler knew was akin to the way a jaw would clench the moment he felt he had a huge catch on the end of his line. Byron's smile widened and turned slightly smug. "You'd be fishing at, essentially, the most southern point of the world and also one of the lowest."

"The bottom of the world." Arnold suddenly chimed in, one of his feathery white brows raising up as his knobby, aged head glanced about the room, scanning across the assembled men.

"So, let me understand this." Nat said, walking over to the map and picking it up in his hands, as if holding it might let him grasp the situation better. "You want me and a small band of men to go to a large, unexplored island filled with dangerous creatures and possibly aggressive natives so we can catch some fish?"

"And get rich and drunk off our asses." the last man of the group, the finely dressed one who had been quite the entire time, added. Nat, almost surprised the man was finally talking, glanced at him as he continued. "Chartering a ship to the new continent is both incredibly expensive and incredibly impossible at the moment. If ships aren't being used to transport men and armaments, they're being bought out by mercenary crews and adventurers. If they're doing neither, it's because they refuse to sail to such a dangerous place where cross-faction naval battles are still raging across any given point around the land's waters."

As he spoke, the man strode up to Nat and took the map out of his hands, carefully rolling it up before sliding it down into a pouch at his side. Pulling out a second, smaller roll, he handed it to Nat. Nat slid off the loosely tied strip of red cloth that kept the map rolled tight and unraveled the parchment. This time, it was a far more detailed map specifically of Pandaria, with what appeared to be major areas, landmarkings, pathways, planned routes, planned stops, a few different planned landing areas for initial docking to the island and finally, done in deep red ink, were known locations of military installments- Horde and Alliance.

"But, Mister Pagle, I have friends from Stormwind to the Undercity. And those friends have boats."

Nat snagged his upper lip, summoning up whatever defiance and questions he had left. "It's a nice map." he said. "How do we know it's going to be any good, or any accurate in a land filled with ridiculous bear people?"

The man smiled and gave a slight shake of his head. "I told you, I have friends. Some of those friends happen to be 'ridiculous bear people'."

Nat dropped his guard again and listened to the man as he stepped back, to a table, sprawling out the first map once again, looking over it. "No other non-native is resourceful or crazy enough to attempt this. The '_adventurers_' will be too busy grabbing loot and glory to bother fishing much. As a neutral force, the Horde and Alliance should be fairly uninterested in wasting time on you. With proper guides waiting for you, the land shouldn't be hard to traverse." he turned, his smile wide and toothy. "And once we've got a proper fishing operation set up, boys, we'll plant exotic fish markets in every major city on this mudball. We'll be coining off books worth of detailed anatomies and scientific classifications on all the hundereds of different new species to the highest bidders; page by page."

"People'll pay a pocket and a half for butter soup if it has new, exotic fish meat floating in it." John added.

"The Explorers League is already posting us bids for collections of research and classification papers." said Byron.

"All we need is men to go down there, not get killed and fish." the last man finally finished, now turned again to face Nat. He stode up to Nat once more, this time offering out his hand. "My name isn't important, but I'm going to make us all rich." he cocked his head as he stared at Nat. "Nat Pagle willing, of course?"

Nat slammed his hand into the man's and clenched it, giving a shake. His previous stupor, his unwillingness and apprehensiveness, were gone. He was Nat Pagle; and he was going to be rich. And drunk.

"Nat Pagle willing, of course."

It was eight days later, and the time had finally come. The previous week had been spent cleaning Nat up (no small task), waiting for the assembled crew (some of which never showed up, so their benefactor hired some new ones on the spot, lovely bunch of guys. They all had the certain aire of stabbing you as your back was turned.) and outfitting Nat and John with top of the line new equipment.

They went through general planning and drinking, of course. The idea was to enter the continent through the shores of a place the natives called the "Forest of perpetual shades of jade which mirror the land beneath it", or just "Jade Forest" for short. Nat decided he liked the short-hand a lot better. The Jade Forest was where the Horde and Alliance first had some of their naval engagements upon either force reaching the continent, but now the Jade Forest was fairly carved up and staked out by the opposing factions, so sea battles in that part of the continent were, for the moment, fairly settled down.

Nat had been told that almost no ships traveled to the continent, to Pandaria, and virtually no ships traveled from it- until today. With rumors of the Horde and Alliance soon sending entire fleets of assault troops to fortify existing positions and take the conflict in Pandaria to a whole new level, a fishing expidition like this was complete madness.

Yet, here they stood, on the sun-bleached wooden docks of Booty Bay. A rag-tag team of around thirty men, each more weathered than the last. Nat stood by John, both in silky new clothes from local Booty Bay shops that made both of them look like flamboyant pirates but still beat their mud and filth crusted old clothes. Besides, they both had new lines, rods, poles and an entire chest of new fishing equipment. They felt like armored soldiers, prepared to face the carnage waiting for them at their deployment.

It was past noon, and the ship to load them to Pandaria was supposed to be here almost two hours ago. Ships traveling in later than on-the-hour expectations was not unusual, but Nat couldn't help but imagine their vessel somewhere on the bottom of the ocean with cannonballs bearing either the Alliance Lion or Horde Spike insignias on them; their only method of starting this insane cash grab rotting in a coffin of sea water.

"What do you think it's going to be like?" John slipped a question out to Nat.

Nat shrugged. "New, I guess."

"What about the natives, you know. The Pandaren?"

"We come from a land with walking cows, talking dogs and people the size of children who spend their days making metal come to life. As long as the Pandaren drink as much as I'm told, I don't care what they look like."

As if his words were a summons, the dockmaster, with his eyes in his telescope, shouted "Approaching vessel, ho! Two nauts out, approaching fast!" lowering his telescope, in slight astonishment, he added "It looks rather... odd, as well.". Most of the group snapped into attention. There had been a few false alarms earlier, but from the dockmaster's reaction, this had to be it. Soon, they'd be boarding the ship that would take them to either their death or their fortune. It was a feeling Nat hadn't realized he missed.

Within moments the ship became a visible speck on the blue horizon, and within just as many more moments the speck became a shape. Shape turned to object, object to ship. The ship turned into an eyesight.

Built much like any other sea vessel any of the men had ever seen, this ship had bright green and red for its hull, and the wood its bow and deck were constructed of looked strangely soft and yet durably hard. Everything from woodwork to the way the ropes were braided looked strangely alien; foreign. Where had this bizzare, wonderful ship come from?

As it slid up to dock, some of the crew gasped. Manning the ship were large, fat, black-and-white fur coated men, or rather, bears. Nat nodded. Pandarians. They'd come all the way from their home to pick them up. One of the boatmen stepped to the side of the deck as the ship was docked, throwing up a huge furry arm. "Hello down there!" he shouted in common tongue. "We're not planning to stay long so if you're our crew, please hurry on board!" he said with a smile that, while friendly, looked rather vicious as it showed off his long, spikey teeth.

His smile dropping, he scanned his eyes back and forth across the men. "You, uh, are the crew, right? This is the right place?"

From nowhere, their benefactor appeared, clapping his hands. "Mr. Fiji!" he called. "So good to see you again!"

The pandaren's smile returned and he waved. "Mister Tomlin!" he called back. "I'm glad we found the right place!"

"As am I!" the benefactor said, bowing slightly.

"Tomlin?" Nat whispered. "Sounds made up."

The benfactor shot him a look that Nat wasn't quite surprised to find looked slightly venomous. "Of course it's made up."

Nat smirked. If he had a silver for every time he'd worked with or for someone like this...

No more time was wasted, the crew hefted up their belongings and essentials and boarded onto the ship. Unlike common ships where the deck was level with the dock and you boarded from either over a gangplank, this ship's deck was a good few feet higher than dock, and so the men boarded into the side of the ship, from a door sliding open in its hull, allowing them to pass into the dark underdeck. Here there more of the strange, curious pandaren waiting, ready to help the men find a place to store their supplies. The pandaren, though new to every man assembled save for Tomlin, with his fake smile, were nothing too out of the ordinary for their world and they were incredibly polite. Nat got on well with them, but the aire of apprehensiveness from some of the other crew was obvious.

"I got it, thanks." Nat heard John say to a pandaren who had attempted to help John lug aboard his tin chest full of hooks; something that weighed so much John barely kept it off the ground as he slowly took it step-by-step.

"Hok'mar!" a deep, brutish voice cried. "I can get it myself!"

Nat, and several others, turned towards the cry. It was an orc, the only orc of the party, defensively denying aid as he carried a large trunk onboard. The pandaren who had attempted to help him stepped back, a polite smile on his face. The orc, true to his claim, hefted the hundreds-pound trunk over his shoulder, and carried it in. The pandaren, seeming impressed, simply followed the orc in.

The ship, while not small, was nowhere big enough for the thirty-some crew, their dozen escorts and all their supplies. Thrown into the mix would be heavy drinking amongst a mixed crew of fortuneseekers, cuthroats and vagnabonds and their overly polite hosts that no one seemed to fully trust.

"How long are we going to be at sail?" Nat asked John as John finally got his chest set down, heaving deeply and covered in sweat.

"'Round two weeks."

Nat sat down on a barrel, pulling out a small flask and guzzling it down. It would be a long two weeks.

The first few days, surprisingly, went very smoothly. The pandaren were gracious hosts and very skilled at what they were doing. Nat felt a strange sense of calmness around the Pandaren, something he hoped was also rubbing off on his fellow crew. There had been one instance of a fight breaking out between two crew, something about one man accusing the other of stealing a knife.

Nat hand't caught the fight breaking out, he had actually been fishing off the side of the boat, dragging a line behind him, hoping to catch some fast-moving marlin or shark. But when he heard the commotion of the fight and the crowd cheering it on, he had gotten up to investigate. What happened next was stunning.

The fight had been verbal, with nothing but empty threats and displays. The pandaren crew actually seemed to totally ignore the scuffle, going about their business, weaving through the gathered throng of men who were hoping to see a little action on their sea ride. However, the moment one of the men finally decided to tackle the other, two pandaren, like lightening strikes, jumped into the fray. In seconds both men were flat on the deck, their hands bound behind them with rope. The men that had gathered around them shocked into silence.

Silence that was broken as a third pandaren stepped in. "I understand room is scarce." he said, Nat recognized it was Mr. Fiji, their boatmaster. "But there is enough violence in our world without any of it being brought to my ship.". The pandaren swiftly cut the bonds on the men's hands and allowed them to stand up. "Save your energy for Pandaria." Mr. Fiji counciled to them all. He turned to walk away, back to his duties. "For believe me, you shall all require it once we land."

Although the men, especially the two who had been bound, were unhappy with the pandaren's interference and attitude, it was his words and how he spoke them that caused them all to grow quiet and almost somber.

"_For believe me, you shall all require it once we land."_

There was never another fight the rest of the shipride.

"Come on!" he pulled as hard as he could on his reel, feeling the pressure and force from the running fish as his pole, bent almost in half, continued to fail at relieving some of the tension.

Behind him, cheers of man, orc and pandaren alike called him on. John was leaning overdeck, scanning the sea, watching as a dark, shimmering pool took shape and then vanished again across the blue horizon before their small ship. "Crest! Crest!" John called as the darkness again took shape, this time transforming into a dim blue fin of flesh, cutting through the water's surface; before pulling back down again.

His arms and back were on fire, it must have been going on three hours, yet for all the time it was taking, the crowd's excitement seemed to grow. Beer was being passed around just as quick as it was being drunken down and even the pandaren crewmen, usually so dedicated and stoic in their duty, were swaying and laughing with the booze and the eventful nature that stuck in the air.

Not so far before them, past the struggle to bring in a sea beast, a fuzzy line of green was taking shape on the far end of the horizon, and their ship would soon be at dock in a land few outsiders had ever set foot on. The fish jerked hard and began taking line back down, nearly dragging him overboard with it. There would be time for pandaria later.

"You're losing it again!" John shouted.

Nat, already quite drunk himself, barely noticed when John poured a mug of beer over his head. "You just need some victory juice, that's all!" John babbeled out before falling over, laughing and throwing up at the same time.

Nat fought the urge to forcifully buck up and fight against the running fish with strength; he knew that would only snap his already heavily overburdened rod. Instead, he let it take line, but was careful to make it fight for every single nano-inch it won back. Fishing was an uphill battle, up in the open atmosphere, pulling against a creature who had total leverage within the water, with the weight of the sea above it to fortify it even further. A pole and a line were all you used to cross over from one world to the next, an extension of a fisherman every bit the same as a weapon to a warrior.

But this was no trial of combat, it was a trial of physical patience and the ability to feel out the fish; and for the fish, it was exactly the same. With a hook in its mouth and a line to his hook, they were connected, two different worlds linking together as fish and fisherman fought relentlessly to tire the other out. The line began to ache, like a treebranch being bent to snapping point. Nat let his arms loose and let the fish run free for a bit, then snapped it far left, to the opposite of the fish's run. The fish was stopped in its feetless steps, and as its head was wrenched backwards, Nat began furiously winding in line, the fish unable to work its body back around to continue fighting for a run.

John, throwing up again, hefted himself over the deck again, his wavering arms barely holding him from falling overboard. Through bloodshot eyes he shouted, "Crest! Crest! Crest at fourty feet!"

The fish was very close now, close enough to see their boat. It fought with a blast of renewed vigour, but Nat was nearly at his limit and there was no more time for games. He held tight on line and rod and refused the fish any slack, the pole crying in protest, small cracks leading to splinters that popped off the wooden rod like party confetti. It was a solid, age-tested rod Nat had recieved as a gift from the Tuskarr, native peoples to the ice and zombie infested Northrend. It was a powerful and beautiful rod that the tuskarr used to catch whales and orca, but it was specially made for cold weather, and it had become very dry and brittle in the hot, salty sea weather.

Nat couldn't help but think how similar and yet totally different the feeling of the pandaren and their pandaria were from the tuskarr and their icy Northrend. So similar; yet so alien.

"Break! _Jump_!" John shouted, falling overboard.

The fish had jumped, barely bringing its massive bulk from the water. The cheering momentarily stopped as awed gasps and shocked obscenties filled the air. The fish was well over twenty feet, only a third of it breaking from the water as it turned belly and fell back, making a weak attempt to descend into the water.

"Juuump!" John called again, splashing in the water below.

The fish jumped again, this time an even weaker display, only managing to flop its front half from the sea. Nat forced his pole down, bending it to the deck of the ship, his arm on fire as he clenched his fist around the reel, grunting through clenched teeth so hard with each crank that he tasted specks of blood on the back of his tongue. This was ending one way or another. Right now.

Throwing back his head, he cried again, "_Come on_!" Letting his cry fall into a raspy exhale, he pulled the rod tight into his stomach, almost making him throw up. "_Come on!_"

The fish hit the side of the boat so hard it made half the men fall off their feet.

"Crest! Crest!" John called from the water between bobbing up and down beneath the water, crushed between ship and fish.

Nat threw up on himself and fell into the water.

By noon the next day they had docked at a quaint little village that was built around the foot of a large, stoney hill. You couldn't spit without hitting a tall, jade-leafed tree, or without tripping over a creeping, fiberous jade vine that snaked out to infinity across the ground. Nat's haul, the giant fish that had been identified as a native _"Giant Fake Jade Fish_", due to it looking incredibly similar to another local fish; albiet the latter being far smaller and as green as everything else in the scenery.

It was beautiful and yet choking at the same time. The natural foilage was untouched by the war they were told was raging across the forest, but it seemed more than that. The way the deep, shining green fauna swayed and moved in the wind; the way it almost gave off an aura of jade itself, everything felt like it was so much more _real_. It was hard to describe and even harder to feel.

Nat had been in other jungles before, deep green jungles, like back in the Stranglethorn or some of the shorelines of Feralas, where the Green Dragonkin patrolled, viciously gutting anyone that dared intrude on their emerald forests.

But this; this far exceeded even the greenest of dragonkin turf. It was beautiful and inviting and yet unexplainable and horrifying at the same time. Nat was in a throng of other men, but the feeling of being cut off and alone was impossible to shake, as if at any moment you could accidently step behind a leaf of jade and simply cease to exist, taken forever in a mist of leaves and vines.

Thankfully, however, the path was bare with dark brown earth and smooth, inlaid pebbles of grey and their guides, the pandaren, moved down the road with casual ease, doing at least a little to relieve the tense, curious nature that had wrapped itself around the other men.

It was not long before they came upon the village that would mark their first stop on the way to Southern Wilds, known also by the local name _Krasarang Wilds_ As they approached the smooth, creamy-colored stone walls that surrounded the tiny settlement, Mr. Fiji bade the group to stop and continued beyond the open gate by himself. Nat slapped at a tiny bug buzzed on his neck. Mr. Fiji was not twenty feet before them and yet he felt as if the pandaren were lost, fathoms away, like a fish underneath the waves. The intoxicating blanket of jade pressed harder and harder, thicker and thicker down as the group stood around, anxiously waiting to be able to be on the move again instead of stuck, lingering in the jade that threatened to swallow them.

Finally, after a few moments, Mr. Fiji shuffled back to the group and waved, the rest of the pandaren guides issuing that the group could move forward and enter the village. Feet plodded and the wooden wheels of wagons creaked as they hauled the supplies, and fish caught, of the expedition. The men entered past the wide, rounded gate of the walls and into the village proper. As they fanned out into the rough, thin roads, they all caught glimpses of more pandaren, this time the villagers, looking back at them. With eyes filled with curiosity mingled with apprehensiveness, men pandaren gazed at them with mistrust; women silently exchanged words amongst themselves while making quick glances at the group before darting their eyes back to themselves. Nat noticed a third type of eyes peering upon them, these ones belonging to much smaller occupants, who huddled and hid behind the legs of their mothers and fathers. Nat caught the eyes of what he made out to be a young girl, who quickly looked away.

They were being sized up and judged, and their judges didn't seem to like what they were seeing. Though the smothering presence of the jade had evaporated from the air a bit as they were now within the village, Nat realized they had only traded one uninviting atmopshere for another.

Now, a pandaren approached the group, descending down a hill, a thin sheet of mist uncoiling around him as he stepped with intent. Mr. Fiji greeted him.

"This seems to be more than what we were promised, Fiji." he said, scratching at a black tuft of fur that seemed to serve as a beard. The pandaren was dressed in sharp but subtle robes of dark green, with beautiful red shoulders that fell into thin trimmings which lined the elegant robe.

"I was surprised too, and I apologize. But still, you should be able to accomodate them, yes?" Mr. Fiji said, bowing down tight and keeping his position.

The other pandaren snorted through his wet nose. "It is that or leave them for the tigers."

A few men in Nat's group bristled and for a fraction of a moment, intensity grew.

The pandaren turned around, the ends of his robe floating behind him, and he began to ascend the hill. "But we, no matter how little space available, would never do such a thing. Show them to their place, Fiji, and be gone as quick as you can."

Mr. Fiji rocked a small bow and then stood up. "This way, everyone." he said quietly as he began leading the men down the road, the eyes of the villagers still upon them. Nat heard the orc growl behind him.

"These pandaren sure like to look." he grumbled.

"I'd like to give them something to look at." another man grumbled back.

Nat just hoped that if any of his men tried anything against any of the villagers, the reaction from the pandaren would be as merciful as it was on the boat. Behind them all, the cart bearing the fish, chief among them the Giant Fake Jade Fish that took up most of the cart and then some, its tail fin dragging in the earth, was towed into the gates, pulled by two large, stout turtles the pandaren provided as pack animals.

This drew some gasps from the villagers, and Nat noticed that even the robed pandaren had turned around and was surprised and amazed at what he saw. Mr. Fiji was grinning and looked rather smug, an emotion that looked quite out of place on his normally reserved and polite pandaren face.

Now the crowd of villagers was murmuring amongst themselves, but a layer of the tension had been thrown off. The robed pandaren quickly approached again.

"You were able to catch this, Fiji?" he asked.

"Me? No, of course not! We're not fisherman!" he said, laughing. He paced over to Nat and slapped him hard on the shoulder. "This is your man!"

The robed pandaren looked completely taken aback, his expression attempting to remain composed but unable to calm the twitch of his eye and the trembling of his bottom lip. Then, he dropped down into a bow of his own, directed at Nat and his crew.

"I had no idea such a gift was being delivered like this! Please, forgive me! Forgive _us_!"

Nat didn't know what to say. Mr. Fiji elbowed him playfully in the ribs. "It _is_ a gift, right, Mister Nat?"

"Of course!" Nat blurted out without thinking. "Caught especially for the occasion of our arrival at your village." his mouth automatically added for him.

"Let's welcome the legendary fisherman, Nat Pagle and his gift to all of us!" Mr. Fiji called out. Like that, the mood was completely diffused and the pandaren villagers began to clap, humbly and automatic at first but it soon began to turn into a wild cheer and without caution several villagers ran up to the huge fish, patting it and laughing.

"Nat! Nat! Nat!" some other villages were now calling. As quickly as a cork was popped from an ale barrel, the situation had changed from a blanket of unease to a celebration of arrival.

"Hey! I helped catch it, too!" John called as pandaren slipped past him to touch the fish.

Cheers of "Nat!" had turned into cheers of "Feast!" as the cart was now being lead down a seperate road. Mr. Fiji caught Nat by the shoulder again.

"There are two things, Mister Pagel, that will make you a friend of the pandaren." he spoke as they watched the cart slowly find its way to what Nat recognized as a sort of butcher-block area, pandaren already preparing long knives and heavy meat axes as children laughed and walked with the cart.

"The first and foremost, is beer." he said chuckling. "The second is a mutual understanding of peace and a desire to exercise friendship." he winked at Nat. "But a big fish works pretty well, too!"

Nat and his men were lead to a large, but not quite large enough, shack that was built of a strangely soft-seeming wood Mr. Fiji told them was '_bamboo_'. It was exotic, beautiful and well furnished but quite too small for as many men that it needed to accomodate. Throughout the day complications arrouse over who was going to sleep where, who got which pillow or mat or which keg of beer belonged to who.

Thankfully, whether it was the lurking forest of jade just beyond the village walls or the spontaneous turn of good nature they had just encountered, none of the arguements turned physical; though part of that had to do with the orc creating- and ending- most of them.

Left to their squabbling, Nat and the others were momentarily able to forget that they were in a strange, dangerous new place thousands of miles from any land they knew the names of. That they were being hosted by a race of people who didn't quite trust them but that they had to rely almost completly on if they wanted even a chance of completing their journey- let alone manage to survive.

Come dusk, Mr. Fiji strolled along the small trodden dirt road that snaked through the tamed foilage of the interior village. Nat was sitting outside of their boardings, already getting drunk with John and a few other crew members. For the past few hours, from their higher vantage point on the crest of a rise of land, Nat had been watching the villagers bustling and preparing for what Mr. Fiji had ensured them would be a feast of good feeling and fortune between the village pandaren and their new, curious guests.

The pandaren of the village were fishermen by lifestyle, with the easiest food source coming from the waters of the sea outside their sleepy village. Nat grumbled as his jug ran empty. The pandaren here valued the art of fishing; and Nat had caught what was considered a rare treasure, their hosts would exalt him for it.

But he was always a drinker; first and foremost. Get drunk and then get fish, if there was time for it. He valued his lifestyle of lazy sedimentary, slipping into and out of soberness while other men toiled in their fields or died in their wars. No one ever asked a fisherman to do anything except fish.

Until, that was, until they had began asking more. Somehow or another, his talent caught eyes and attention and before he knew it he was drug onto one adventure after the next. With the hassle came the fame, and with the fame came more hassle. But the hassle ment more money. The money ment more booze. The booze meant more good times. The good times led to even more hassle.

He kept himself awake at night more than once pondering if his life was one of classic irony or just an example of a man too caught up in the moment to remind himself he was just a drunk fisherman. Not cut out for traveling across the world, to new and exciting lands. Not cut out for the adventure, the hassle. He was just a drunk fisherman who didn't know how to turn down an offer for more money to get himself into more hassle.

He tossed the jug behind him, listening to the familiar empty hallow sound of the clay jug bounce and rattle across an alien world of jade and danger. With any luck, he'd get sick enough of the jade to convince himself he truly didn't feel any excitement in this newest of hassles.

"Nat and company!" Mr. Fiji announced as he drew upon them, bowing. He rose with a short laugh as he cast an arm across the scene below them, of a dark dusk drawing in around a large group of villagers down below. Red flames bobbing and shifting about, keeping the encroaching dusk at bay as they lit up tables full of fireworks, food and... as the jug behind Nat fell to a silent rest, most importantly, barrel upon barrel of precious alchohol.

"Our hosts have extended their offer of invitation!" Mr. Fiji finished. "Come, drink in the hospitalities of my people!"

Other men were already brushing past Nat, looking down at the gathering festivities below.

Mr. Fiji cleared his throat. "Emphasis on the _drink_ part, gentlemen!" he finished with another chuckle. A few of the men, both used to and charmed by their polite boatmaster, laughed as they began wandering down the hill, whatever apprehensiveness they had dissapearing at the sight of the exotic new brew they were about to imbibe upon.

"I'll drink with the Lich King himself if it meant no more of this mud-brew." John said, clapping Nat on the shoulder as he got himself up, joining the growing throng of men that drew from behind them as more and more of the crew joined the crowd mentality of "drink more beer".

"Mr. Nat, surely you are coming as well?" Mr. Fiji asked. "You are the guest of honor!"

Nat belched. "I'm a fisherman, Mr. Fiji." he said, pulling himself up. "Just because I'm too good at it for my own good doesn't make me anything of honor." 

"Humble _and _cynical!" Mr. Fiji quipped. "Perhaps you are simply not yet _happy_ enough yet?" he said, as he took Nat by the wrist and slapped a smooth wooden flask into his hand.

"Not yet. But we'll get there." Nat winked back; and they were off, down the hill, to join in a celebration _pandaren style_.

The festivities, a bit to Nat and his men's chagrin, began rather slowly. There was drinking- heavy drinking- with live music, food that was passed around on large smooth-wooden plates and an occasional firework that lit up the dying daylight. Mr. Fiji informed them that the fireworks being set off were ceremonial, to christen the beginning of their party. Nat gave the jovial pandaren a raise of his brow as two villagers walked past them talking to themselves about "_just a few more tests to use up the rest of the cheap ones_", a small wagon of tightly-wrapped fireworks and lighting sticks embering slowly in their hands. Mr. Fiji gave a chuckle of ever so slight embarassment.

As night fell, however, the party picked up. Then it picked up faster. Then faster again. Then Nat couldn't remember where he was. Then he thought he passed out. Then he thought he woke up. Then the party picked up even faster.

The pandaren, for whatever they were, were insatiable drinkers. A young pandaren boy had drunk four of Nat's men under the table and was currently trying to pry the wooden top off of another bamboo keg, sputteringly shouting at a tree to come try its luck against him.

Nat felt someone slap him on the back as they laughed at the drunken boy. "_The Pandaren who got so drunk he challenged a tree to drink with him". _He laughed. "That's an ancient story around our parts."

"Really?" Nat said, barely listening to the villager over the music, which had swept itself into a wild, almost enigmatic and incoherent frenzy of noise that somehow only seemed to make more sense the faster it was played and the drunker you got.

"No!" the villager burst out, spilling his drink and tumbling backwards off the log they were perched on, wrenching in laughter in the dirt and mud below.

The party was meant to be a feast of honor, but the feast was served more like an endless assortment of appetizers, with new platters of the food brought out as the previous ones were emptied. At first the food was both beautiful and delicous, the meats of the fish cut and arranged over sweet crackers or served smoke-cooked with different sauces overtop it. Eventually the chefs got drunk enough themselves that platters were coming out with more or less random pieces of butchered fish on them and everyone else was too drunk to notice.

Beside Nat, the orc had just managed to outdrink one of the villagers and was sitting upright and proud with only a little swaying, his shirtless chest glistening in the firelight. One of the villagers who had been watching the drinking match sat down next to the hulking orc and ran one of her fingers up and down his thick green arm.

"Your skin is so green, just like our forest!" she said before leaning in closer to the orc, who was looking slightly taken aback by the pandaren. "I just wonder if the _rest _of you is green, too?"

Nat almost joined the pandaren laughing on the ground as he watched the huge burly orc, normally so short spoken and unwavering, stammer and gasp in embarassment and confusion before keeling over to throw up. The pandaren giggled.

And the _fireworks_. They had only seemed to get bigger, louder and more impossibly elaborate with every new launch. They too had began slowly, only basic eruptions of colored balls or circles, nothing any of them hadn't seen before. They were, at most, a backdrop to the party. There to be enjoyed but hardly to be noticed. But now they exploded in shapes and patterns Nat had never concieved he'd be able to see or comprehend.

One exploded into dozens of small, fiery blue balls that bobbed and weaved through the black sky, like small fish. Then, a second fireworked turned into a larger red shape, this one more defined with a large dorsal fin and a mouth that opened into sharp interlocking teeth.

The red firework flew across the night, devouring the small blue flames until all of them were gone. Then it too collapsed into itself, sending a glowing rain of blue and red cinders floating from the air, thin vibrant trails of smoke flowing behind each of them as they burnt out over the party's heads.

Another exploded once, then twice, then three and four and several more times. Each explosion transforming into a segement of a body, until after a dozen and a half payloads a serpent-like dragon twisted and flew above them, leaving a wave of crackling sparks behind it before it spread open its mouth and exploded a final time in a defeaning roar of thunder that for a brief moment lit the small village up almost as bright as the daytime sun.

Whatever tension or mistrust there had been between Nat, his crew and their pandaren hosts had evaporated completely. John sat down beside him on the log, spilling a slosh of his mug onto him. "You sh'know what, Nat?" he gurgled out, threatening to fall over at any moment.

"I... think... that. The pandaren." he beleched. "they aren't so bad. This is a nice place. They aren't so bad." he belched again, this time with a swift hit to his stomach, as if demanding its contents stay down. "If we don't die here, Nat, I think it's going to be an alright place." he barely finished before he fell backwards, throwing up on himself.

Nat took a long draw from his own mug before falling backwards himself, joining John on the floor.

_Jade Forest, Shmade Forest_, Nat thought to himself. If this 'Pandaria' was named after a people who drank like this, there was no way it could be such a bad place. Yup, he could feel himself enjoying it already.

The forest was even more awful than they'd all remembered it.

The crew spent several more days in the village, and after the initial party, they'd more or less become official villagers. They helped with several repairs and different tasks around the village, from fixing a few walls broken in the party to some of the more battle-aquainted of the crew helping with village guard patrol. Most of the crew, Nat himself included, were actually quite sad to finally have to leave. Nat was beginning to find a beauty, albeit an otherwordly and still quite strange, to the new continent of Pandaria.

The land here seemed so _alive_, it was impossible to put a finger on the feeling, the aura, that permeated every living and unliving thing- themselves included. Every lush green bush or dull brown rock seemed to excrete the same eerily haunting and yet calmingly serene essence that just soaked into your flesh the way the thick morning dew did. It was impossible to escape and the longer they were out in the endless strangulation of jade, the more the uncomfortable feeling of becoming one with it grew.

They were traveling on the outskirts of the forest, where the trees and vegetation were at their thickest and most consistant as opposed to the thinner and more open areas that they were told comprised the inner parts of the forest.

Their outskirting, of course, was done in an effort to avoid any Horde or Alliance, who were still locked in battle and vying for dominance, footholds being claimed, lost, reclaimed and relost endlessly hour by hour. For a few minutes their uneasy stupor of the forest was shattered by the rumbling sounds of mechanical planes crying overhead, the treetops too thick to see through but the long jade leaves swaying back and forth as they were tossed by the flight above. The planes didn't sound in combat, but they were obviously off somewhere in a great hurry.

There was strong rumor across the land that one, or both, of the factions were employing air-dropped bombs and firekegs, carpeting long stretches of the forest with their payloads in hopes of hitting hidden enemy installments. The real danger and looming threat was actually quite welcome; it helped to give them a more tangiable and understandable thing to worry about. Maybe it was all that kept them from going mad.

After the crew's first night sleeping on the road, no cozy village walls to keep them seperated from the ceaseless jade, one of the pandaren night watchmen had presented the crew with the corpse of a giant tiger. It was deep orange with heavy black stripes lining it, its dead yellow eyes were deep and its mouth hung open to reveal its razor teeth. It was, in shape, identical to the tigers and big cats Nat and most of the rest of his crew had seen in jungles and places across their familiar Azeroth. Its size, however, was completely different.

The tiger was _huge_. As big as a kaldoreian nightsaber but twice as bulky and sheerly massive. The tiger was apparently stalking them for hours before nightfall, and attempted to strike as most of them slept. Nat's crew balked in disbelief when the lone watchman described killing the beast himself, but his fellow pandaren nodded and assesed what to do next.

"It was just a solo male." Mr. Fiji spoke as he and Nat began to set off once again. "Sometimes, as the young males reach maturity, they are known to stalk larger groups such as ours and attempt to steal away a 'prize' from within it." the pandaren shrugged. "A sort of rite of passage test, I suppose."

What Nat was more concerned with, though, was how none of them noticed such a huge creature following them. He knew all to well the abilities of a tiger when it came to being quiet and stealthy, but the beast was at least over half a ton and the forest around them was so thick- and its fur was bright orange. How did it hide and move so silently in the jade? How did they not notice it?

And if a tiger like that could so easily evade their attention; what _else_ had they been missing?

Finally, after three long days of the forest the crew came to its first transition. The weak dirt path that hardly contained the creeping jade from either side suddenly opened wide into a huge, flat stone path that climbed up the side of a steep, dark-stoned foothill.

The caravan stopped as the crew fell in around the mouth of the new road. Mr. Fiji stepped forth, standing before the crew with his arms out. "This is where we leave our _Jade Forest _behind, my companaions." An actual cheer rang out, though it was fairly soft, short and reserved, as if the forest was still listening to them.

"We will waste no more time here." Mr. Fiji continued. "The road has, so far, been safe with the exception of a minor run in." Mr. Fiji gave a quick glance toward the pandaren that thwarted the tiger's hunt days before. "The road ahead, however, will be considerably more..." he stopped short, turning around and staring up the winding stone road that would lead them all out of the forest that bore down on them. Looking upon the road as if it might have the word he was looking for.

After a few moments, he finished his thought.

"_formidable_."

Quickly spinning around, he returned to his normal cheerful opptomisim. "But there will be considerably less forest, as well!"

That alone was good enough for the crew, and in unison they trundled forward, their mud-stained boots leaving a messy trail as they left behind the endless jade. The forest seeming to give a silent moan of defiance as its prey slowly escaped from it, leaving behind an empty void that was only too quickly refilled with yet more of the infinite jade.

It was very early dawn as the crew worked their way up the hill side. After only a few minutes they had ascended far enough up that they were passing the treetops of the Jade Forest, the vibrant jade a giant dark blotch of shadow in the still lightless dawn. Nat shivered, not because of the collecting morning mist or to shoo away one of the tiny green insects that relentlessly bit and feasted at the flesh of the crew during the night (which the pandaren had no trouble with, their thick fur easily repelling the bugs) but he shivered because the sensation of leaving the forest so suddenly felt a strange sensation of relief and yet vunerability.

Within the forest they were not only concealed physically by the trunks and branches, but the jade that ceaselessly wafted about them had seemed to keep them anonymous and lost in this new land. How could anyone, or anything, find them when they couldn't even find themselves?

But now, the shroud was cast aside and there they were, higher and higher on the mountain road, bare and exposed. It was a feeling Nat did not prefer.

But still, they climbed. The road was smooth and the going was easy. Nothing gave any alert of their advance save for the occasional sounds of falling stone as the large mountain goats overhead flew from their presence, their cloven feet traversing the mountain without struggle or fear. The soft chewing ring of the stones falling down the mountain side reminding the crew how high they were beginning to climb.

After only a short time, the path cut immediately deep up into the mountains rather then simply up its side. The crew followed the path, the creaking of their supply wagon giving a soundtrack to their climb that was accented by the still occasional goat tossing down tumbling notes to the bottom of the foothills.

Before they knew it, their time on the barren mountain road was over. Mr. Fiji was before them again, his arms thrown out in their iconic manner. Nat and some of the first of his crew stepped up beside their guide and gazed out and the low lands before them.

Their jaws dropped.

Morning sun broke over the horizon just as they reached the end of the mountain road, and before them there lay a panoramic view of the new land their path would take them through. Sat lower to the mountains than the forest behind them, the land had a geography and shape all its own, unique from the forest beside it. Gentle fields that dared to, but almost never quite did, roll into soft hills. The land was uneven here and there, with parts of it jutting into natural stone pillars or low platues towering into the sky. Here and there shallow lakes and streams nestled themselves in between tilled fields and tiny farmhouses, their occupants still slumbering inside.

The grass, sitting on the bumpy and unflat land, was an ochestra of mingling colors. Patches of red, yellow, green and even strangely lively brown coalesced and mingled together, covering the landscape and falling in to chase each other up the rocky outcrops.

And above the land, snaking their way between raises of earth, were huge elegant bridges of white stone and red wood so bright that it seemed to shine in lights of its own. The sun slowly peaked over it all, illuminating it more and more with each second.

"Thrall's balls." John said beside him. "It's _beautiful_."

Mr. Fiji gave a quick hum of laughter. "It is my homeland, Mister John." he said, letting his arms fall down to his sides. "It is the called _The Valley of the Four Winds_."

The rest of the crew now joined them on the bluffside, looking out over the valley, all of them wearing expressions of awe.

"And it welcomes you all." Mr. Fiji said.

They made their way down from the bluff, following the road that descended into the valley proper. Before their view of the forest dissapeared completely behind them, Nat and Mr. Fiji turned back one last time, looking over the treetops of jade that hid only so much more jade beneath their canopy.

"Some people call that," he said, pointing out to the treetops of jade "_the sea of jade that touches the sea of blue_".

Nat felt an odd pang of harmony at the sight, the harmlessness of the colorful treetops betraying what was underneath them. It was a strange and uncomfortable place for him, but for the forest itself, it was a serene place that perfectly encompassed everything it was. It was he that was the one that did not belong.

Nat shook his head. This place was making him too sentimental.

The morning was steadily rising in the sky as the crew made their way further into the valley, passing underneath one of the mighty bridges, the construct held hundreds of feet above their heads. It put into a perspective how tiny they all were in the valley, how easily the winds could sweep them away if they weren't careful.

Around them, the farmers of the valley began to stir, waking from their homes and preparing to commence their daily tasks. Most of the farmers paid them absolutely no attention, and the ones that did merely gave friendly waves or nods as they passed close to their fields. The entire valley was an open, uninhibited place completely detatched and broken away from the forest they had just come from.

It was peaceful, and seemed simple enough. Which is what prompted one of Nat's men to ask Mr. Fiji; "Back in the forest you said this road was going to be harder. It doesn't seem like it." he looked around, breathing the air in. "It seems nice."

Mr. Fiji chuckled as he peeled an apple with the claw of one of his fingers. "I did not say it would be '_harder_'. The word I used was '_formidable_'." He bit into the apple. "And do not forget that! Right now we're walking the tillers road, but once we're into the heart of the valley..." he swallowed the apple and spit a seed out onto the ground.

"That's when we're out in the open."

"Open?" Nat asked. "What do you mean? Out in the open to who? To _what_?"

"Ahem." Mr. Fiji cleared his throat. "None of them should really be a problem, Mister Nat. The saurok are always too busy fighting amongst each other down at the river to ever be much of a problem to anyone. The yaungol don't normally come this far south in great number... but _have _been known to. A young mushan bull should be deterred by our numbers, as well."

Mr. Fiji coughed again. "Though none of those are garauntees." he added.

Nat shook his head. He didn't understand most of what Mr. Fiji had just told him, but whatever the valley had in store, it couldn't possibly be worst than the forest.

Nat wrenched the blade of his dagger back and forth in the creature's scaley-yet soft- hide, the beast hissing in pain and anger. A hand, armed with sharp claws, cut deep into Nat's upper leg as he stumbled overtop his opponent, his legs crushing its chest.

He staggered up, look out at the melee before his eyes. His men and the pandaren were winning, and there were over a dozen lizard-like bodies bleeding on the ground in contrast to only two of their own. Off to his side, John had a large metal hook in one hand with the throat of one of the lizards in the other, showing the beast just why they _really _called him "Big Hook".

A blurt of a horn called, and the lizards retreated, though some had already began running away before the call to flee. A shaft of bamboo shot past Nat like a bullet, striking one of the running lizards in the back, causing its body to almost snap over in a perfect fold as it toppled limp to the ground.

Nat turned to see one of the pandaren giving a disapproving shake of his head to another, uhappy at striking down a fleeing enemy. The offending pandaren just gave a careless shrug and trodded off to retrieve his staff.

"That's the third attack in as many days." John growled, wiping his hook clean on the exposed flesh of his leg.

"They're persistant." Nat agreed. "And now, most of em' are dead."

He sighed. Some of his were, too, though. Two dead from this attack and one from the previous. Their journey through the valley had been troublefree, until they crossed the river. Until the river, they enjoyed a lazy stride beset by sunny weather and friendly locals. The most annoying thing Nat had to deal with were the swarm of adventerers stopping to get his autograph or make tired jokes asking whether or not he knew what an _Ashbringer _was.

Apparently, however, south of the large river than cut through the valley had recently been "claimed" by a saurok calling himself _Chief Salyis_, and the southern bank was littered with roving war parties of the lizard-men. They were numerous, but poorly armed and pretty bad at fighting. Well, these ones were proving to be so far, at least.

Mr. Fiji was rubbing some blood off the fur of his hand when Nat approched him. "Fiji." Nat spoke. "How much longer until we're out of this valley? I'd prefer it if we didn't all die here."

Mr. Fiji gave a tired laugh. "As would I, Mister Nat." he said, wrapping a cut on his arm in thin white cloth. "If we're not attacked again, we'll be in the wildlands by tomorrow night." he shrugged. "Not the best time to enter them, at night, but better than sitting up here."

Nat nodded and tried to get his crew reorganized. The worst part wasn't the attacks as much as it was dealing with the aftermath. They were growing more and more tired, more and more spent, but the saurok were attacking in fresh groups; never giving them too long a respite. Now, they had two more men to bury.

After everything was settled again, the men prepared to head off. They were weary and most of them were still injured, but the saurok of the valley found the wildlands they were traveling to to be too wet and wouldn't follow them once inside. "Wildlands" sounded pretty uninviting, but the saurok were making even the Jade Forest look preferable by comparison. So, off they kept at it, hoping the rest of their trip would be left in peace.

As night began to fall, their only trouble with the saurok came when one of the crew, armed with a bow and stock of arrows, spotted one of the lizard-men spying on the group from a bush. As they stood over the body, slain by an arrow through its chest, John grumbled about how they should have tried taking it alive for questioning. Mr. Fiji shook his head.

"The saurok know little of battle strategy or planning, Mister John; and if there _were _anything to know..." he reached down, placed a furred foot on the stiff saurok and yanked out the barbed arrow from its body. "It's unlikely our friend here would have ever talked."

"Our people have a very diplomatic approach to the saurok." Mr. Fiji snapped the arrow into John's hands before turning to return to their path. "We prefer to show mercy and work for mutual understanding and peace."

He chuckled. "But I've found the most practical means of approaching saurok is to just get rid of them all."

They reached the Wildlands by noon the next day, hours ahead of schedule. The valley, already low to the ground, dipped down further and further, cresting like a wave that was boiling back into the ocean. Then abruptly, as if the ground had tired of the only gradual descent, the land simply vanished before them, ending in only a stiff bluff. The land beneath them curved back into the bluffside, leaving an unscable and incomprehensible rockwall to negotiate in order to get down.

Nat and a few of the men were standing at the flat clifftop, peering down in the murky fog that was slowly wafting about at the base of the tall trees covering the low wilds. "We can't traverse this." Nat said, shaking his head.

Mr. Fiji gave a signature embarassed chuckle. "Ah, you are right, Mister Nat." he said, nodding. "The original plan was to take the eastern path into the wilds, but unfortunately it has been made to my attention that that pathway is no longer a plausible means of entering the wilds."

"Why?" Nat asked.

Mr. Fiji sighed and produced a small round tin of metal from his robe. Pressing it open, it turned into a small spyglass which he handed to Nat before guiding his head just where to look. From over a few openings in the leafy treetops, Nat saw the tops of towers. They were large and wellbuilt, akin in that way to the massive bridges and mountaintop temples seen throughout the valley, but just a single glance at them and one could tell the towers definitely weren't local to the native pandaren.

Hulking and round, built from rough grey blocks, bright blue banners gilded with deep gold flapping from heavy wooden beams that sat atop each tower. The fort ran its way up a hill, and from there Nat could see over the trees enough to spy dozens upon dozens of men working. Carrying large wooden crates or bundles of planks, building the framework to more towers or armories or other contructs. Nat was sure they had to be unloading everything from docks coming from a port of some kind, but the port would be lower and into the sea, so he couldn't tell for sure.

More alarming than the workers, however, were the armored guards stationed all around them. Most were human but some of the taller frames of armor concealed night elves, their long purple ears sticking out of their helmets; the shorter ones, sturdy and armed with huge hammers or heavy swords were dwarves. Here and there one of the alien draenei walked on their strange cloven feet, constructing strange totems. From what he could tell, he was seeing only a small part of the fort and he was already counting half a hundred men- most of them battle armed.

The Alliance proper had landed in Pandaria and had set up their headquarters right in the place Nat was going to go fishing.

Mr. Fiji tapped Nat on the shoulder. Nat turned to find the pandaren with an embarassed look on his face. "That's not all, Mister Nat..." he positoned Nat the opposite direction. "There _was _a western path into the wilds as well, but, well..."

To the west, Nat was able to get a much clearer view of the shoreline, because where sandy beach didn't push back the forest, rampant clear-cutting of trees had. Lowering the spyglass for a moment, Nat realized the black-iron monstrosities that had invaded the beach were viewable by naked eye in the distant horizon. He brought the spyglass up again and continued surveying. Short green creatures, slightly similar to orcs but nowhere near as tall or bulking and ten times more coniving than any orc could hope to be, were rushing about to man the pumping, throbbing pipelines that spewed thick blackness from every corner pipe. The goblins were digging for oil all down the western coast.

Further up the shoreline, Nat caught the entire view of the Horde's own pandaren base. Sharp, sharp metal blades bedecked dark metal walls that enclosed a base of more sharp metal blades and more dark metal walls. If the Alliance fort looked a bit like a landfall, the Horde base looked like it had already won the continent. Ships as threatening and war-ready as the base itself sat, docked into the sand. Some of the ships had common grunt orcs hauling out crates and supplies much like their Alliance counterpart, but most of the ships had their large iron hulls opened, huge war machines being driven or chain-pulled out of their innards.

Within the base, underneath all the dark red banners flying the symbol of the Horde, soldiers trained in groups. Brushing up on their combat skills after months at sea, orc, troll and tauren warrors covered in heavy platemail that barely fit their bulging arms and chests sparred. Among them, slender elves in red robes worked, casting strange magics into black spikey balls that chittering goblins carried off, loading into cannons.

Nat wondered what the elves and goblins were doing, and paid close attention when one of the goblins began aiming his cannon. Nat wasn't sure what the goblin was aiming for, but when it fired, a large strip of forest hundreds of feet from the base was blown into black smolder. The crew felt the tremor of the blast rattle beneath them. Even Mr. Fiji was taken aback. "What happened, Nat? What did they do?" John asked behind him.

Nat peered back into the spyglass and focused on the area the cannon had shot. Trees were toppeled over, but left no stumps, as the blast had torn the entire trees from the ground and scattered them in broken heaps all over the beach and forest. Among the cracked and shattered trunks lay the bodies, or what was left of them, of over a dozen alliance soldiers. A blur of mounted orc riders, ontop war wolves, flew past the spyglass' view and Nat watched as the Horde soldiers clashed with what remained of the Alliance force.

He lowered the spyglass and shook his head. The Alliance _and _the Horde had both claimed the wildlands for themselves and were warring over it. Nat just hoped it wouldn't scare away the fish.

With the cliffs unscalable and the only two paths into the forest completely blocked off by Alliance and Horde, Nat wasn't sure just how they'd be getting down into the wilds. Mr. Fiji had them camped on flat clifftop, assuring that by the next day their salvation would arrive, but he never mentioned just what this "salvation" would entail.

But still, Nat and the rest of the crew trusted their guide enough that they were ready to wait at least a single day for the next leg of their journey. It was barely even morning the very next day that Nat, sleeping off his drunken stupor from a night of booze, was awoken to the sounds of hammer, nail and wood creaking against wood.

Rubbing his throbbing head, Nat looked up to see a score of pandaren building what looked to be a large wooden arm that reached out over the cliff. He shook his head to clear his mind, and realized that the arm was infact a _crane_. Mr. Fiji was overseeing the construction and turned to find Nat waking up.

"Ah! Mister Nat!" Mr. Fiji called. "We're just starting to finish up, and then our path to the low wilds will be ready!"

Nat approached the crane, still rubbing some sleep and hangover from his eye. Mr. Fiji clapped him on the back. "It'll be large enough to take us down ten or so at a time. It could take the turtles, too..." Mr. Fiji began, looking back at the large packbeasts the crew had been using to haul their ever-dwindling supply cart. "But the turtles are a bit too cumbersome for the marshes of the low wilds."

Nat was still rubbing his head, trying to drown out the cacophony of the construction as he tried, and failed, to make mental adjustments for losing the pack animals. "How are we going to carry our supplies?" Nat asked, though he already knew the answer.

Mr. Fiji gave a chuckle. "Just remember; lift with the legs, carry with the arms and drop everything to run."

Nat belched.

Mr. Fiji explained he'd prepared ahead of time for a predicament such as this, and had called in a local favor. The crane would be built and then deconstructed; once their job was over, they'd boat out from the sea at the southern end of the wilds to leave Pandaria behind.

In just a few hours the crane was built and the men loaded on in several groups to be precariously roped down. It was like stepping onto an elevator that took you into another world. You walked across a rickity beam that served as a gangplank, stepped into a violently swaying liftbox, made peace with your god and then watched as the sunny, peacful landscape of the valley turned first into wet moss carpeting the rolled cliff before even that dissapeared before a veil of foul, thickly steaming mist.

Before you could enjoy the ride too much, it was at an end and you were jolted and buckled against your companions, most of you falling over off your feet, as the liftbox smashed into the ground. You unloaded yourselves and watched the wooden box lift up into the air, leaving you behind and alone and isolated in a place of ambience so tense and offputting that you didn't want to turn your backs on the trees themselves.

Before long, they were reassembled and wishing the valley saurok were still their primary concern.

"Welcome to the _Krasarang Wilds_." Mr. Fiji said with only a slightly sarcastic tone. The men were grumbling to themselves as each of them took up a piece of equipment or box of supplies to haul. There was very little left, and although every man in the crew was burdened by something, none of them had much to carry. It was a strange mix of thankfulness and worrisome; thankful that they didn't have too much to carry and worried because they didn't have too much to carry. 

Nat strapped his poles across his back, a bit like a warrior with his blades, he liked to fancy. Around his head he wore a red cloth band with most of his hooks, lures, metal sinkers and bobs poked through the soft fabric. The rest of his tackle was in a box strapped around his waist. A knife in each boot and a sword down his pants leg left Nat feeling a bit like some kind of special force commando, scouring the foggy wetlands on the hunt for enemies.

Beside him, John was hauling his box of tackle, heaving with with a red face over every slippery hill and bramble of lumpy, wet tree roots that entertwined and choked each other like snakes fighting for survival. It had an awful tendency to rain on and off in the wilds, the rain chasing away the intense jungle heat for a few moments but then only serving as a herald to the swarms of jungle bugs that spawned out of every fetid pool of standing water or from under flaps of dead treebark. In the treetops, cawing birds sang and shrieked or broke moment of silence with the flapping of their unseen wings as they flew from treetop to treetop.

Oh and there were tigers, too. These ones were smaller than their jade realitives and a lot easier to spot; which somehow made them a lot worse. By the daytime they dared come no closer than a few hundred feet from the crew, catchable from the corners of the eye for brief moments as they stalked from hillsides covered in moist vegetation. The thick, dewey leaves silent against each other as hungry cats brushed through them, eyeing their quarry.

Come night, with fires started that pushed back the heavy jungle atmosphere and attracted the marauding jungle insects, the tigers waited for a chance to pounce on their sleeping prey. Invisible to the shadows around their camp but ever present, Mr. Fiji assured them all with a laugh that the tigers would never attack them, especially with such numbers and with fires going. But with more than a hint of caution suggested they stay as grouped as possible, no one too far from anyone else.

Their first night there, Nat was trying to keep awake by the fire, pondering whether it would be the tigers or the soldiers that killed him first when Mr. Fiji appeared silently by his side. Nat slapped at one of the jungle bugs trying to suck from his leg, where slight infection had set in at the wound he'd gotten from the saurok days before. It was healing nicely, but the moist jungle heat was causing the skin to become wet and bothered, and now it was a constant battle to keep the bugs from festering at it.

"They are tiny." Mr. Fiji said as he sat down. "But even a thousand tiny things can be quite a bother, can't they?" he laughed. In one of his hands he had a bundle of purple jungle leaves, long and fiborous. He snapped the bundle into two and held the leaves over the fire, squeezing thick white juices from them that fell onto the fire.

The fire took on a strange aroma that was unpleasent, like oil being burned too hot, but the bugs instantly flew away, buzzing off into the dark night. Mr. Fiji sat back, throwing the rest of the leaves directly onto the fire. "That's better." he said. "If you can't squash them all, at least there's always a more clever, non-violent way."

Nat sat up, rubbing the cut on his leg. "We'll bind it with fresh ointment tomorrow." Mr. Fiji promised.

Nat carefully stretched his leg out, his mind moving away from the flesh wound. "Where are we going, Mr. Fiji." he asked bluntly.

Mr. Fiji looked at him, the fire beginning to cackle weakly as it burnt the wet leaves. "We're traveling to a fishing colony, at the sea." he answered.

Nat shook his head. "No, I know that. But where are we going _here_? This whole journey, this whole land, it's been nothing but strange and hostile the moment we landed. Sure, the village in the forest was nice and the valley was a place to see, but even then, it's as if there's a constant feeling of us not belonging here. Like the land knows we shouldn't have come."

Mr. Fiji looked, for the first time Nat could seem to recall, a bit somber. With a heaving sigh he shifted his sitting position. Pointing up into the night sky, he asked, "Mr. Nat, is your sight well enough to see the peak?"

Nat's brow ruffled for a moment, but he looked towards where the pandaren was pointing. Squinting through the darkness, in the light of the moon, he could see the faint black impression of a tall mountain top. The peak so tall it could be seen from so far away and so low down.

"I can see it." he answered.

"That is the tallest mountain in all of my Pandaria; maybe even in the world." Mr. Fiji spoke with reverence as his gaze was lost out into the dark horizon, staring at a mountain he was seeing more in his mind than before him. "They say a lot about it, Mr. Nat. That our old emporers can be heard whispering from its peak, or that standing ontop of it allows you to see all other land in Pandaria, or that ancient spirits sleep underneath it, waiting to break out and devour the world."

Mr. Fiji laughed, the twinkle of his eyes catching in the light of the fire. "I do not know if any of what they say is true, Mr. Nat. But whenever I travel around pandaria, no matter how far I go or where I am, I can always see the mountains of _Kun-Lai_. When I was a cub, I played in the valley under their shadow. When I was an adult, I used them to serve as a center of navigation when I was lost. Now that I'm older and don't play in the valley or get lost on expiditions, I look up to those mountains, and no matter where I am in the land and no matter how bad it is, I see those mountains and I know I'm always in Pandaria. I know I'm always home."

Nat sat silently by the fire. Mr. Fiji continued. "You say this land feels alive, Mr. Nat. You say it feels like it has rejected you." Mr. Fiji used a stick to stir the smoldering ashes of the fire around, releasing another waft of thick smoke that drove the insects back. "And you are right, on one account."

Nat looked over at the pandaren, who was smiling. "This land _is _alive. It is alive with emotion and history. Good _and _bad." Mr. Fiji finished.

They sat together for some moments, before Mr. Fiji asked. "What is it you wanted to find here, Mister Nat?"

Nat gave a one shoulder shrug, looking into the short flames that were consuming the jungle leaves. "I came here to get a job done."

Mr. Fiji chuckled softly. "Is that true, Mister Nat?"

Nat turned to respond, but the pandaren was already up, moving off to another fire to put a batch of leaves on it and drive away the biting insects. Nat turned back to his campsite and stared up into the night sky. He couldn't be for sure, but he almost felt as if the dark, rough shape of the mountain seemed ever so slightly clearer than it had before.

The next day of travel was their slowest yet. It had rained slightly towards morning; no longer than any other spat of rainfall, but it was a much heavier rain with thicker drops, and it resulted in a forest that almost seemed to boil in misty heat.

At their helm was Mr. Fiji, the pandaren having torn a strip of cloth from his robes to serve as a makeshit headband, the pandaren for once in their entire trip looking a exasperated and worn down from the land. The other pandaren served worse, and Nat and his crew far worse still. It was slogging, painful and above all hot and hard. Stepping over solid ground meant slipping on wet grass and suffering from tiny cuts as you kicked past thorny underbrush and keeping track of each tread so as not to step upon any of the long, purple-green snakes that plagued the misty wildland and threatened to deliver venomous bites.

Walking on the soft mud meant each step sunk almost knee deep at times into hot, smelly mud that sucked you down like a tar pit. Some of the men had abandoned their supplies and a crew member who had suffered from a snake bite was now being hauled off by two of their pandaren guides, a kit containing anti-venom and pain relievers left somewhere miles behind, slowly sinking into jungle mud.

"Where are we going?!" one of the crew finally shouted in frusteration. Murmurs spread quickly among the crew, reinforcing the outburst. Nat was fully surprised it had taken this long for that to happen.

Mr. Fiji pointed to a tree top, where a long, beautiful crane bird was perched on an outstanding branch. Nat couldn't believe he had missed the crane, which dipped its long head as if some sort of nod or bow before flying off the branch, swooping forward before turning around in the air, flying forward and giving a call.

"We follow the cranes!" Mr. Fiji called back.

"The _birds_?!" the crew member shouted.

Mr. Fiji turned around in an anger and frusterated outburst that stunned everyone. "It is the cranes or it is the tigers!"

No one argued.

As the day hit its peak and the sun found its way through breaks in the tree tops, the floating mist that never seemed to quite fully evaporate let up some. It was hot, but a more _thinner _type of hot. The kind of hot that didn't make each breath seem so thick you had to choke it down, that made the beads of sweat on your forehead feel so heavy and worthless that you didn't know how many more steps through the mud you could bear.

The kind of hot that was quickly burning down morale.

There were whispers and talks, Nat knew.

"_The Alliance would take us, I bet. We'd just have to go up there and tell them we're lost travelers. We'd be safe."_

"_Let's cut our loses and try to find the Alliance."_

"_They'd have ships returning to Azeroth for supplies. We could go home."_

Nat tried contemplating the same thing, he was Nat Pagle afterall. He could go up to Alliance or to Horde, sign a few autographs, tell a few jokes. He could get out of the mud and get drunk. As long as he wasn't with a band this large, no faction would mistake him for doing anything _military_.

But try as he did, he knew he couldn't. All he could wrap his mind around was the fish he had caught on his shipride onto the continent. How he had somehow, with just a rod and lure, drummed up this incredible creature from nothing. Deep blue nothing turned into a fish. He had been on the road for weeks, now, and despite how terrible the jungle currently was he knew he was close. Close to the shore, to the ocean. To the bottom of the world.

They were going to a fishing colony and they were almost through these wilds. He couldn't turn back now; besides, the Horde and Alliance combined didn't have the kind of beer the pandaren did. He wasn't stopping. Not here, not now.

Nothing would hold him back.

Then, without warning, two of the pandaren guides shouted in alarm. Before they knew it, shapes and noises erupted from the trees around them and within moments they were surrounded by snarling, salivating wolves and the orcs that rode them.

And they were held back.

"Hahahaha!" one of the orc laughed, his squat head kept inside a heavy helmet that glinted in the heat. It had to have been unbearable in all that armor, Nat thought. But the orc laughed away.

"What've we got here?" he asked, peering at the crew. "_Alliance?_" The wolves began growling and snapping at each other at the word.

"No, no! Nothing like that!" Mr. Fiji proclaimed. "We are just-"

"Shut up!" the orc cried with such outburst that he leaned forward in his saddle, standing on his legs before sitting back down.

Beside Nat, the orc in his crew walked forward, shouting in the language of Orcish. He approached the lead wolf rider, speaking words that Nat hoped weren't of some kind of betrayal. After a few exchanges, the orc was now standing directly infront of the lead rider's mount, showing no fear or hesitation infront of the massive wolf.

The lead orc laughed again and leaned from his saddle to kick the other orc in the chest, sending him staggering to the ground. The other riders, all orc themselves, laughing with him. "Do you think I care about _Nat Pagle_, worm?" He spat. "Do you think Garrosh Hellscream cares? Or have you forgotten that you're supposed to be an orc?" the words were spit in raw, throat-ripping fury.

"We've come to this filth and crap covered jungle because Garrosh Hellscream wills it." he bid his mount slowly forward, and his riders followed suit. "We've left Alliance laying in the ground, clutching their empty guts as they sink into the mud because Garrosh Hellscream wills it." He raised an axe that looked impossible to hold. "We go where we go and kill who we kill because Garrosh Hellscream wills it!"

The orcs shouted and wooped in agreeance.

"Who are _we?!_" the orc demanded.

"_Horde!_" The orcs cried back.

"And who are _they?!_"

"_Dead!_" came the answer.

The orc laughed again and raised a horn to his lips to give the attack, when a voice called out and the orc stopped completely, his face a mix of surprise and frusteration.

"Wait! Wait, I said!" the voice called. "This wolf is too slow!"

Nat and his men actually exchanged glances. For a fraction of a second it seemed they were going to die, and now this? Was this going to be salvation, or a delay of the inevitable? The voice called out to wait again, and the men grew more puzzled. It was clearly a woman, and no orc woman, at that.

From the jungle foilage, atop a wolf as massive as the others, rode in an elf. Her robes were stained, ripped and filthy and her hair was frizzeled into a mess from the heat but she was still an _elf_, and if they all had to die, at least they got to see one last pretty lady.

"First of all." she started, trying to get her wolf to approach the lead orc rider. "These are clearly non-combatants." the orc opened his mouth to reply but the elf held a single hand up and he stopped immediately, though his face showed he was quickly growing tired of the elf's intrusion.

"Second of all..." she looked towards the crew. "Did you say one of them is Nat Pagle?"

Nat nodded. "I am." he said.

The elf actually jumped a bit in her saddle. "Are you _really _Nat Pagle?!" she cried. "You look exactly how I always thought you would!"

With a few more awkward slaps and pulls of her stirrups, she got her wolf to walk slightly foward. "I can't believe I'd find you here like this, what a treat!"

Now the crew were just looking at each other in stupor. If they really had to die here, at least it could be faster than this.

"Obviously you're not with the Alliance or anything like that, you're just here to fish, right?" she asked, her green eyes wide like a child's.

Nat just nodded slowly, keeping his eyes mostly on the orcs and their wolves.

"Well!" she said. "As an affiliate of the Horde, I can not assist you in anyway, but as long as you're not an enemy, no one is going to harm you."

The lead orc opened his mouth again and without even looking, the elf shot her hand up, but this time the orc continued, his green face growing red. "You have no authority over me or my men!" he cried. "Be thankful we allow you to slow us down, instead of just cutting you down!"

At this the elf shot her face back to the lead orc, who actually flinched back a bit, laughter from his crew compounded the orc's embarassment. "If you want your precious Garrosh Hellscream to succeed in fortifying a position here, you will cooperate with me and my people."

The orc redoubled himself and spoke again, his voice lower this time but with much more threat and venom mixed in. "You and your people serve the Horde because you _must_. No one is asking you, you do it or we _crush_ you."

"And once you crush me, who will fuel your portals? Enchant your bombs? Do you think you can keep the Alliance back if your supplies of men are cut off? Will the ships alone be enough?"

The orc was just heaving in anger at this point, clearly wanting to speak up but unable to find any words. The elf continued.

"Or do you think that the goblins will do it?" the orc said nothing. "The forsaken can't be stationed here for long, it's too hot and you know how well their kind... _puts up_ with that."

The elf pulled hard on her leather stirs and the wolf began walking. "You can 'crush' us if you will, but who is going to explain to "Garrosh Hellscream" why your landfall was overrun when you run out of troops?"

The orc was on the defensive now, and spoke out once more to try and save face. "Bloodhilt said-"

"Bloodhilt will crush your head under his boot himself if he finds out you've done anything to hinder troop movement."

The orc swore in his native tongue, and then gave a command to the other riders, who fell in behind their leader. Another command, and they were gone, back through the trees; heading towards Alliance scum.

"It was a wonder to meet you, Mr. Pagle." the elf said, waving back at Nat and his crew. "Do your fans a favor and don't get killed out here."

With that, the elf's wolf reared up and rushed to follow its companions, taking the elf with it. Nat and the crew stood in silence, watching the trees the orcs had vanished into.

"What the hell was _that?_" John asked.

"I have no idea." Mr. Fiji answered.

"Nat! Nat wake up!" Nat stirred from his sleep. "Wake up, Nat! Damn it!"

Nat forced an eye open. It barely dawn, and John was squatting over him, shaking him by the shoulder. Nat sat up and looked over his camp. He saw dying campfires, supplies and the panderen... but no other crew.

Nat cursed and pulled himself to his knees. "Where is everyone?"

John shrugged. It was literally John, the pandaren and himself. Everyone else was gone.

"They left." one of the pandaren spoke.

"Left?" Nat asked.

"For the Alliance, they said."

"Why didn't you stop them?" John cried.

The pandaren shook his head. "We are guides, not slavers. They wanted to leave, we could do nothing to stop them."

"Damn..." John said, staring at the empty camp. "Even the orc left. That's insulting."

Mr. Fiji was now getting up himself, a gasp of ashamed surprised as he too noticed the empty camp.

"They left just as we were so close out of the jungle..." Mr. Fiji said, dejected.

"Let them leave." Nat said. "All a group that size did was slow us down, anyways."

Nat got up and immediately began getting ready to set out. Though they had all sort of bonded a bit on their journey, Nat wasn't sad to see them go. He meant what he said, too. They'd go a lot quicker and get out of this jungle a lot faster without them. Whether they got to the saftey of the Alliance or were cut down by orc or dwarf was no longer his concern.

"We will travel lighter, yes." Mr. Fiji agreed. "And if they weren't cut out for the jungle, better they leave now, while they still can."

"Cowards." spat John.

Mr. Fiji wasn't joking when he said they weren't long for the jungle. It was no more than a few hours walking that the trees slowly dissapated into ruddy, rocky grass. The rock quickly gave way to finer sand, and within minutes they broke from the trees and were looking at a small stretch of bare sandy grass that ended where the beach began.

Nat fell to his knees, drinking in the freedom. The jungle hadn't been quite as intoxicating as the forest, but the feeling of being out of the steam and trees felt as refreshing and renewing as walking out into a breezy storm. The lapping of the shore playing in the not so distant foreground.

"My my!" Mr. Fiji said approaching Nat as he took off his filthy impromptu headband. "Is that the ocean already?"

They traveled quickly on foot, their destination close. Mr. Fiji told Nat and John that some locals referred to this place as "_The Soup Bowl_" for the way the steam of the jungle lifted up over the fresh air of the ocean that made the entire place look akin to a great bowl of cooling soup. Nat got the same feeling here as he did in the forest; the eerie feeling of aliveness that permeated all the land to some degree, and though this feeling was just as high as it was within the forest, it seemed calmer and more relaxed here. It felt like he understood it more- that it understood him.

They saw no signs of either faction or their warfare, and with the cool breeze from the sea on their skins after the excruciating jungle, the hot sun hardly felt like anything at all. Along the shore, the occasional crane bird fished, poking their beaks in and out of the salty water quickly. Most of the water within the Krasarang Wild's jungles was murky and brackish, the crane's favored fishing was along the clean shorelines. "If you don't like the jungle, ask the cranes." Mr. Fiji had told them when they'd first broken out of the unforgiving wilds.

Nat had spent a lot of time on beachfronts, baking in the sands as he failed to catch anything or stay sober, but as his bare feet sunk ever so slightly into the warm dry grains he knew that this land was nothing like any other beach he'd fished on before. From the sands of the Stranglethorn to the red sand in Durotar. Outlands to Northrend, nothing felt quite like _this_. It wasn't just the physical feelings of location, either.

It was one of the furthest southern points ever geographically mapped or understood, attached to their world and yet completely alien and seperate. Even the forest and jungle seemed more tangible; more down to earth and understandable. Here, crane pulled their bounties from a sea made up of fish Nat had never seen before, fish that had stayed hidden from his world just like the pandaren themselves. To him, they were the aliens, yet he was the outsider. The pandaren, the jungle, the forest, these were all things he didn't really understand. Things he could never be apart of. He scanned the endless blue horizon as they walked, his fishing rods softly bouncing against his back with each step, but there was another world here on this Pandaria. Though this world was still hidden, not within mists, but down beneath the rolling waves of infinite ocean. Nat could never hope or care to understand the surface of Pandaria, it was foreign and beyond his grasp. But underneath that infinite ocean was a world he had dipped his rod into many times before all over their world.

All the waters in the world were connected and familiar with each other. Pandaria had different people, different customs, different earth and different dangers but its waters were the same. They were brand new but already known to Nat, and he would know their bounties soon.

Nat was having little luck as he passed the dusk fishing off the beach. From a few feet away, Mr. Fiji had been watching him in complete unmoving silence. At first, Nat had been privately annoyed by the pandaren, feeling as if the old guide was judging his lack of managing to produce any fish from the endless ocean bounty. But now, the pandaren's presence and attention had turned to seem oddly comforting, like an audience of sorts.

Nat felt a bite on his line, it felt quite large; but then so had every other fish he had caught, strung up over their fire and smoking to cook. Each one just as small and measly as the last. After a few minutes of struggle, Nat reeled the fish to the surface, the sleak body sliding under a glass window of sea water before it shattered through it. It was the smallest one yet.

There was something about the fish here. They fought with strength Nat had never seen, each fish a different species and yet all of them powerful and unrelenting. They bent his rods and made his string hiss and cry. Finally, as Nat unhooked his latest catch and tossed it back towards the fire, Mr. Fiji stirred.

"You find the fish here to be difficult to catch?" he asked. Nat bristled.

"Not _difficult_." Nat assured. "They're just tough."

Mr. Fiji smiled. "They wouldn't last long if they weren't."

"I suppose it makes sense." Nat said as he absent mindedly prepared his hook to cast out again.

"The fish nearest to the shore are always the fish that are caught first." Mr. Fiji explained. "It has made them strong for their size." He got up, brushed the sand from his bottom, and approached the sea. His robe, once clean and uniform, had toiled at the elements and though it was now ripped and stained deep with mud, it still had an aire of elegance to it as it swayed in the ocean wind.

"Why did you come to Pandaria, Mister Nat?" he asked.

"You already asked me that." Nat said, casting out his line. "I've come to do a job."

Mr. Fiji chuckled softly, his laughter taken by the wind. He said no more.

As night fell and the small crew prepared to rest before trekking out the final leg of their journey, Nat and John entertained themselves by teaching the pandaren a new trick. Normally quite the other way around, the two fishermen showed their guides that if you dug a shallow hole in the beach sand and pushed the embers of your fire into it before covering it up with a loose lid of sand, the spot would stay warm for hours into the night as you slept over it.

Nat looked up into the sky as he lay on the sand, listening to the lull of the ocean waves lap against the shore. It was the same sky and the same lull he saw and heard on any beach anywhere. The ocean to his side, Nat fell into sleep, thinking he might understand what Mr. Fiji meant when he talked about his beloved mountains.

The next day began quickly and they wasted no time in cleaning their camp up and preparing to move again. "We are nearly to our destination." Mr. Fiji assured them as they began walking down the beach. "Obviously we were expecting to accommodate a... _larger_ party, but it will be of no real concern."

The last leg of their journey was mercifully uneventful and within only several hours of walking, by approaching noon, they could see their destination on the near horizon. On the shore, there were several wood and bamboo shacks. Suspended into the air on wooden beams, they loomed over the sand in low tide, but come high tide they were obviously flooded up to the wooden decks, trapped in the water. A score of boats were anchored in the sand as if waiting for someone. If you looked out at the sea and squinted, you could make out the distant shape of more shacks, sitting out over the ocean.

They were soon upon the small shore shacks, where pandaren worked at loading barrels and crates of fish off boats coming into the small harbor. Other boats, loaded with new nets, baits and other supplies shipped themselves out with single riders, making for the distant ocean-bound shacks.

Mr. Fiji walked on ahead of them, giving a whistle. Most of the working pandaren gave a glance, but looked away quickly. Only one looked over with a laugh and walked down from his position at the deck of a shack to greet Mr. Fiji.

"We have finally arrived!" Mr. Fiji announced as he took the pandaren's paw in his own.

"We've begun to wonder about you, Fiji!" the pandaren laughed before looking beyond his friend towards Nat and John, his smile falling a bit. "Is this all that made it? We were expecting more."

"We were all expecting more, old friend." Mr. Fiji sighed. "A few were taken by the saurok in the valley, the rest abandoned in the jungle."

The pandaren gave a shake of his head at Mr. Fiji's recount. "The jungle is hard, harder still with the outsiders fighting in it. They've droven the saurok out, and now we're under constant assault by them."

"Assault?" Mr. Fiji said, concern in his voice. But the his friend held up a dismissive paw.

"It's only been one or two lone saurok running into camp at night, trying to make off with some fish. At first we felt sorry for them, and let them take what they needed, but it was like feeding a stray animal... now they come in greater numbers, abusing our hospitality."

"Could they attack in number?" Mr. Fiji asked.

"If they wanted to, or grew desperate enough..." his friend answered. "But the saurok of the jungle are unlike their valley cousins. The water of the jungle stunts their growth; too much salt. We could handle them if it came to that."

Mr. Fiji ended their discussion with a nod. Whatever the saurok may or may not do was not a concern at the moment, their journey was close to an end for now, and everyone was ready to be done with it. With a goodbye and a promise to talk again soon, Mr. Fiji and his friend quickly prepared four thick wooden boats. They were solid, but shallow to the water and Nat was surprised and slightly impressed when three of the pandaren guides sat in on without the boat sinking below water line.

Soon they were all in their boats and ready to go. A crew of only ten down from nearly fourty-odd. Nat prefered the smaller numbers more and more, it made travel ligher and quicker, and he was only left wondering why so many men were with him in the first place. Their benefactor must have assumed more men would have been lost to the elements of the new continent and wanted to 'buffer' the expedition's odds with fodder. Lovely guy.

But one way or another, the fodder was gone and now only John, the pandaren and himself were left. They pushed off from the shore, Mr. Fiji giving a wave back to his friend, their small boats bound towards the ocean shacks. The Pandaria mainland was behind them, all the jungles and vallies and forests. Their final destination growing ever closer.

They slipped their boats between small sand barges that poked out from the shallow waters, their boats hissing beneath them as the smooth wooden hulls slid against the thick wet sand before being swallowed into the deeper water. Behind them, the jungle steamed. Like a giant bowl of cooling soup.

As they went further into the water, they passed towers of stone that rose from the ocean, small huts precariously built along the pillar's sides and peaks. Behind Nat in their boat, John gave an impressed whistle.

"People actually live up in those huts?" he asked.

Mr. Fiji chuckled. "Yes!"

"How do they get up and down from them?" John inquired.

Mr. Fiji choked for a moment before pausing with an '_uh_', "I'm... actually- I have no idea!"

It wasn't long on the water before the shacks in the distant turned into a more defined view of a small town, docks and walkways serving as roads. From out at this vantage point, fisherman brought up deepsea quarries and nets so full with schooling fish that they took ten pandaren to haul on dock. It would be their homes for the next several months, and though it wasn't a defining example of comfort, Nat was strangely eager to reach it.

Within time they were only a few dozen yards away, and Mr. Fiji guided them to slow down. With their wooden oars they pressed against the water, slowing the sliding drive of their boats. Finally, the wooden bows of their boats clunked softly against the salt-erroded docks of the fishing waif. Several pandaren were already standing there to greet them, laughing a bit as Nat and John came in too quickly, rocking themselves into each other as their boat struck dock with force.

"Welcome, fellow anglers, to our _Anglers Wharf_!" exclaimed one of the pandaren on the docks. Smiling, he bent down on a knee and offered his hand to Nat. "We trust you had a safe trip?"

Nat took his hand and noted how the pandaren squeezed it extra tight as he helped Nat from the boat. Nat squeezed back; the pandaren squeezed harder. Nat squeezed harder. Nat stepped onto the dock and the pandaren gave another laugh, then he dropped Nat's hand and gave a bow.

"I am Haito, local fisher of the wharf."

"I am Nat Pagle." Nat said. "Unlocal fisher of the wharf."

"And I am John." John said, stepping beside Nat. "But you can call me 'Big Hook'." he offered a hand to the pandaren, clenched around a large hook.

Haito, with a raised brow, carefully wrapped his own stubby fingers around the hook and gave it a precarious shake. "Greetings, 'Big Hook'."

John nodded and withdrew his hooked handshake. "Call me John." he said.

Mr. Fiji stepped from his own boat, as the other pandaren guides joined the rest of their remaining crew on the creaking, sun beaten docks. Mr. Fiji knelt over to quickly tie each boat up to iron cleats, the once-time shining metal cleats that were bolted to the sides of the wharf dock long since eaten away and rusted by the salty sea air. Mr. Fiji stood, giving a few shakes to the knees of his robe that were thickly ingrained with dirt and sand that would never wash out.

"We had a few different unexpectated events happen upon us on our journey." Mr. Fiji explained. "Part of me is surprised we made it at all."

"What of the eastern and western paths?" Haito asked. "Surely you passed through one?"

In a rare display of sarcasm, Mr. Fiji retorted, "Does it _look_ like we bypassed the jungle?", unfolding his arms before himself to display his irreparably travel-torn robes. Haito laughed.

"This _Horde_ and _Alliance_." he began. "They're actually quite..." Haito paused for a moment as he scratched a finger under his furry chin. "Eager, I should say, to make our friendship."

Mr. Fiji was silent.

"They're having trouble feeding their troops, they've sent envoys and peacemakers to us almost daily the last few weeks, bading us to teach them how to fish our waters or trap in our jungles." Haito continued. "If you'd approached one of them, they'd have certainly given you safe passage to the beach."

Nat, John, Mr. Fiji and the other pandaren guides stood in complete silence. They craned themselves down a cliff, slogged through a jungle, almost got killed by aggressive forces and lost all their crew to desertion- all to learn they could have avoided it all.

In unison, as if by a silent and unseeable queue, the travelers- human and pandaren- all laughed together. John threw up over the wharfside.

The Anglers Wharf was a bit of a desolate local, located hundreds of miles off the coast of the mainland, and even then miles of inhospitable jungle seperated it from any welcoming lands; and that was only after you crossed the southern valley, which was currently being pillaged by saurok. It was also quite rustic, comprised of salt-blasted wooden shack homes that contained little furnishing, some didn't even have glass covering the windows.

Roads were made of the docks, which lined across the water between each shack or square fishing plaza. Here and there, docks squared around large rocks that jutted from the sea, which were covered in ocean slime, wet seaweed and gull dropping. Each rock, however, had roughly-hewn stairs that allowed one to climb up onto the tops of the rock, which were fairly flat and kept dry and warm by the sun. They provided both interesting fishing spots and a place to relax on sun-warmed rock.

Even when the entire wharf was silent, it was serenaded with the tune of constant water lapping at the wooden docksides and beams, played to the beat of fishing lines being cast out and reeled in again. The occasional gull caw and rolling ocean waves in the background of it all.

The wharf was not completely level, and wooden stairways lead to higher docks, extending three levels above the 'ground' floor of the wharf, to the highest level where a single large wharf lodge sat. Soft grey smoke billowed out of a low chimney upon its tatch-bamboo roof, the only hint of some form of luxury in the shoreless wharf. The sea-town itself was not contained to the docks alone, several large sand barges poked from the sea like miniature islands. Upon them, more shacks and fisherman went about their day, barely paying the newcomers any attention at all as they threw their lines out again and again into the great water.

Nat breathed in the air, familiar and salty. The water against the docks a soothing lull. Seabreeze whipped past him as it pushed waves in the water, that rattled the thick-rope nets cast out here and there from the wharf docks. For the first time since boarding their ship back in Booty Bay, Nat Pagle felt good about leaving Stranglethorn. It was time to fish.

Their guides, revealed to be trained combatants who protected the wharf, took their leave of the crew, save for Mr. Fiji. The trio, lead by Hiato, wound around the wharf docks. The hard wood creaked and swayed in the water beneath their feet, but they all walked quickly and with confidence. Up a few flights of rocking stairs, they were taken to the great lodge at the top of the docks. Haito bowed and motioned for them to enter through the open doors.

They walked into a large, single room lodge that had several tables, chairs and other furnishings of comfort such as padded seats and pillows. On one side of the lodge, there was a small kitchen area with two stone ovens, a clean countertop and various utinsels for preparing food. The ovens also served as fireplaces, and the stone was slid close and tight against the wooden wall, leaking heat out and into the lodge room. Against the far wall was a flight of stairs, which lead up to a common bunk area where soft net hammocks lined the walls all the way up to the ceiling. Across the floor, flat cots or simple blankets were spread around, providing more sleeping places.

Haito lead them through the lodge and through a second set of doors that were beside the first steps of the stairway, which lead them out onto an open-air balcony, supported out over the sea. The balcony was large and wide and in the middle of it sat a large bowl made of many smaller stones. There was no visible mortar between the stones, they seemed to be simply arranged in such a way that they perfectly fit snuggly together; tight enough that the bowl held its volume in water.

"The water isn't hot at the moment." Haito explained. "But even cool water will wash off the heat of the jungle... and the dirt, as well."

Nat wasn't sure how many others might have used the bath before them, but the water seemed fairly clean- and it was fresh. Haito left the three, and the men and and the pandaren stripped and shared a cold wash.

It wasn't as refreshing as a hot, soapy scrub may have been, but Nat couldn't complain. He'd been far dirtier for far longer and had far worse a wash for it. On the other end of the stone tub, Mr. Fiji was dunking himself over and over into the water, the clean bath turning increasingly black with dirt around him. Nat silently thanked that he had only bare flesh. The hair on his head got itchy and irritated enough in the jungle heat, he couldn't begin to imagine what an entire body of hair must have felt like as it got covered in filth and hotness.

John was entertaining himself by squeezing water from between his hands, his dirt-caked hair untouched by water. Nat leaned back on the tub, the stones warmed by the sun, rolling his shoulders into the smooth rock.

"So." Mr. Fiji said as he worked a brush into his arm hair, scrubbing out more filth. "You've made it all this way. From your home to mine. Not many live to say as much; most never even try."

Nat shrugged as he softly fanned water into the cut on his leg, trying to wash out some of the festering jungle from it. John was fruitlessly trying to rinse his scalp.

"You've asked me why I came out here." Nat said, sliding to adjust his buttocks from a hard rock. "But why did you bring us out here? You went through weeks of hard travel and put yourself at risk. For what?"

Mr. Fiji laughed, swashing his arms in the water before him to disperse the black soot, summoning his thoughts before he spoke. "I was born in the valley." he began. "I grew up in every far-off nook and ne'er-tread path of Pandaria. I walked the peaks of mountains, kept warm in hollows of the snows. I explored the jagged rocks of every shore, every coast. I've seen temples and cities built over ten-thousand years ago. I've watched some of them burn to the ground, or be stomped underfoot."

Mr. Fiji, staring deep into the water, laughed to himself. "I've seen so much good and so much bad, I've spent my years seeing my own home to my own fullest." He looked up at Nat and John. "Now, I've come here. I live quieter, most of the time. I help fish and feed my people, I look to the land to provide the answers I need to make sure that in ten-thousand years, young pandaren will stand on some wind-beaten hill and look at statues and cities and temples and say to themselves, 'Can you believe how old this is? Can you believe we're looking at it right now?'." He laughed again to himself.

"You want to know why I brought you here?" he asked. "It's because you're fisherman! I've seen what you outsiders are capable of. I've seen 'Horde' and 'Alliance' cut my people down, I've seen them force innocent pandaren who want nothing to do with their conflict into labor and conscription. Seen them rip apart the land to build their war machines and fortresses." he stared down at Nat and John, and the two men couldn't help but feel slightly offput by their guide's words.

Mr. Fiji's face was stern and serious, but with another laugh, he melted into his usual jovial self. "But I've also seen outsiders who have helped my people. Seen them make us safer, stronger. Fortified us. _Inspired_ us." he sat back in the tub, running clawed fingers through the hair of his legs. "My people have been locked in Pandaria for so long. Even a gilded cage is still a cage. Now, after so long, for the first time history can remember, pandaria is _unlocked_. Has that brought some bad? Of course! The world is a bad place sometimes, even Pandaria! But I've seen it bring much _good_ as well."

He continued. "Some of my people wish to be left alone and rid of you outsiders, all of you. But we have an entire world to share with each other, Mister Nat and Mister John. There is bad waiting for both of us, but I want to believe the good is worth it. That it will justify it."

He leaned back in the tub, sighing. "In ten-thousand years, I want pandaren to live all over the world, to see everything your side has to offer. To look at ancient ruins and great cities, to clap their arms around elves and orcs and humans and dwarves and say 'Can you believe how old this is? Can you believe we're all here to see it?'."

Mr. Fiji lowered his head, wiping away tears. "You are fishermen. My people can not understand or accept invaders, but they _can _understand and accept fishermen. I asked you to come because I wanted to show everyone that not every outsider comes to chase us off and build their wars and ruin the land. I wanted to show them that Pandaria alone isn't everything in the world. To show them there's good in the bad, that the good... is worth _being_ for. That Pandaria doesn't have to sit in its cage, letting an entire world pass it by. That there's still another journey somewhere out there for an old traveler like me." Mr. Fiji sighed again, looking down into the water, seeing things Nat could not.

"That is why I brought you here."

As late noon fell over the day, Nat and John were sitting, sharing a few drinks in the lodge. It was airy, and their new clothes were soft and comfortable, letting the breeze slip under them to air out their weary bodies. Neither man cared much for the robes, but they both agreed they were better than the sweat, blood and fecal stained rags their old clothes had been reduced to. The wharf pandaren had provided them with bowls of soup, and the men downed their respective meals in moments, burning their mouths on the still quite hot broth. Now they'd been sitting for a time, trying to wash out the stinging burns with cool alcohol. It wasn't quite working, but that was no reason to stop trying.

Haito eventually walked through the wide ever open lodge doorway, Mr. Fiji in tow behind him. "Gentlemen!" he called, alerting their attentions. "I trust you are finding everything to your liking?"

The men nodded. Haito made his way to their small table and pulled a chair up, joining them. Mr. Fiji sat down as well, his face a tad more stoic than usual. Haito sat with his elbows on the table, his bear-visage shaped into something Nat and John both recognized as a good bit of thinly hidden disdain. "Good, good! Wouldn't want you to come all the way out here for nothing, afterall."

The mood had shifted to a thick haze of unease, and both men were immediately sizing up their pandaren host- their host returning the gesture. Mr. Fiji sat back, silent and visibly uncomfortable.

"My friend, Mr. Fiji, has assured me you will both follow our rules while you stay with us. He's convinced us to let you be here, let's not dissapoint anyone." Without another word, Haito immediatley got up from his seat and left, not looking back.

"Nice fellow." John quipped dryly.

Mr. Fiji sighed. "I apologize." he shook his head. "He and some of the others do not quite trust you. When the Alliance, mostly human, first landed on these beaches, they assured us they wouldn't harm any of the natural faunas that could interupt our lives. Only a few weeks later, and they were ripping miles and miles of coral from the sea, and stripping the jungle."

Mr. Fiji, his eyes shooting wide for a few moments as he pivoted on his seat, continued. "They've been almost as bad as the Horde at stripping the jungle of its food, as well. You heard about the saurok problem back on the beach. Food is scarce for us all, and this last ancient place is one of the few major fishing spots left around our waters. With naval warfare beginning to wage even in these waters now..." he didn't finish.

"I used to serve in the military." John said, downing the last of his mug. "Crap work. In down duties, I'd fish. Eventually I got good enough to quit the service and start as a sports fisherman."

Mr. Fiji smiled and nodded, trying to return to his normal self. "That is quite uplifting, that you could live your life doing what you chose."

"Well I can tell you, if I had to pick between getting here the way we did or getting here on an Alliance ship, I'd take the jungle and the forest anyday."

Mr. Fiji laughed before growing more serious again. "The wharf wants you to fish tomorrow, and show off your abilities. There's also going to be a party and a lot of drinking. It should do well to ease tensions between yourselves and the others."

Nat recalled their firest encounter with the pandaren, back in the jade village. The mood was tense and insufferable, but he remembered how quickly the pandaren changed and opened up. With any luck, it would work out to be similar here.

Night fell, and John and Nat were offered a place in the lodge to sleep. The men declined, however, and opted to sleep in the open outside. Bunking down in boats, the men slept in the gently bobbing beds as the sea rocked them to sleep. The air out at sea was fresh and cool, and after spending so many nights in the dank jungle, sleep came with ease and speed.

Nat woke early, almost not used to sleeping in such peace. He lay in the boat, his back slightly aching from the slumber, but feeling great otherwise. It was the dim twilight before dawn, and the world around him was just beginning to wake up. Next to him, John was snoring, and around him the gulls cawed in the rising sun and perched on rock and dock alike, ruffling their feathers and preening before the day began. No other creatures stirred, and the wharf was silent. After some time of laying there, Nat carefully rolled over and picked himself up off the floor of the boat. Stepping out of his makeshift bed, Nat strolled queitly around the wharf.

By day it was busy with the bustle and activity of fishermen making their catches or bringing in their nets, rushing this way and that to get their bounties to the correct place. Boats came to and from the wharf, carting fish one way and fresh supplies the other. But now, the docks and piers were empty save for the flapping gulls. The only sounds were the swaying of the docks and the lurching boards underneath each step as water endlessly washed against the docksides. He came to stairway, where he sat down, looking back towards the shoreline. He could faintly make out the pale line of sand where the shore was, along with the fatter dark line of the jungle above it. He gave a shake of his head. He'd rather deal with suspicious pandaren than those jungle trees again.

Finally, realizing there was little else to do, Nat trodded back to his boat. Retrieving one of his rods and a handful of hooks and bait, he walked across the empty wharf to a corner of dock, where he baited up and casted out.

The line took through the water smoothly, and the waves carried it out, foot by foot, for several minutes before he snapped his halter down and stopped the line. He stood there, alone, with no external distractions as he probbed the dark waters with his line and bait. He jerked the line back and forth several times before deciding to reel in. He wasn't really fishing as much as he was just absently going through automatic steps to pass time. Fishing was, in the end, purely all about luck. You could do everything in your power to increase your chances, from choosing the right and best baits to fishing in the right spots and everything in between. Ultimately, it depended on you managing to land your hook infront of a fish and goad it into biting.

Sometimes that tended to happen on absent minded casts.

His line went taught and he felt an immediate tug on it. His brain and muscles responded in a moment without even thinking about it. Before he'd even realized he had a bite, his hands had set the hook. Holding his line down low, he reeled in with steady revolutions, always stopping to toy with the fish whenever it tried to pull back line. It was a short but dramatic struggle and within minutes Nat was pulling his catch to crest the surface. It was no fish, but in fact, a rather angry sea turtle. Good eating.

"Well done." a voice from above him called.

Nat looked up to see the dim outline of Haito looking down at him. "But sea turtle are a fairly easy catch around here." Haito looked down at the flapping turtle, watching it slap the dry dock wood with its wet arms. "But... no less tasty..."

Haito stepped down the dock stairs and joined Nat on his corner, picking up the turtle and snapping Nat's hook from its mouth. "I hear you'll be fishing with us today, Nat Pagle." he said, handing Nat the end of his line back.

"I hear also that you managed quite an impressive catch as you shipped into our land." Haito eyed Nat, who just shrugged and gave a nod back.

"Mr. Fiji tells me you aren't like the invaders, and I want to believe that. I do." Haito said, stroking the hairs of his chin. "I hope you plan to prove that." he turned around, the turtle tucked under an arm. "And if you choose not to prove as much... do remember, our wharf is very well defended, and bodies have a habit of staying lost at sea."

Nat said nothing as the pandaren walked away. He baited his hook and cast it out again, listening to the distant but unseeable '_plink!_' as hook hit ocean.

Morning broke, and with the sun rose the pandaren. At the very first, there were only a few up and about, each noticing Nat was already up and fishing. Some of them greeted him warmly and gave him cheers for fishing earlier than everyone else. Nat got the feeling that distrust and malice were not a completely mutual feeling across the wharf's inhabitants. Not long before the initial risers, everyone on the wharf seemed to awake at once.

As the day went into its usual business, Haito and Mr. Fiji stopped by Nat, who was still fishing in the same spot. "Mister Nat!" Mr. Fiji called as he and Haito approached. "We must find Mister John; Haito has a generous offering for you both!".

Nat, his interest piqued, reeled his line in and followed the pandaren. John was still sleeping in his boat, and they woke him before traveling to a far end of the wharf, where a squat, round shack stood. Bade to enter by Mr. Fiji, the four walked through the door and into a dim room whoes circular walls were covered inch to inch with all kinds of baits, lures and tackle.

"I know most of your supplies either went bad or got lost or left behind on the journey." Mr. Fiji said as he shut the doors behind them. "So I've arranged to get your gear replaced, courtesy of our honorable host! With a chuckle, Mr. Fiji gave a solid pat on Haito's shoulder, the latter of whom rolled his eyes.

In the middle of the room, a shirtless pandaren sat, working attentively on tying hand crafted lures, not even bothering to notice his guests until Haito gave a quiet "_ahem_" that broke the pandaren's concentration and brought him back to a world of interaction with other people.

"Hm?" the pandaren hummed, looking up. As he noticed the men and Haito, he gave a gasp. "Ah! Haito! I've been expecting you."

Haito nodded. "Men, this is the wharf's master baiter. He will fit you with whatever you'll be needing to fish our plentiful waters."

John giggled. "I'm sorry, what did you say he was?"

Haito, an eyebrow raised, turned and answered, "He is our master baiter. Why?"

John laughed and even Nat smiled and shook his head. The pandaren looked at each other cluelessly.

"Does his mother know?" John said, snorting. Nat, unable to stop himself, laughed with his friend.

"I'd tell him to watch out for hairy palms, but it looks like it's too late for that." Nat added, goading the laughter on.

The pair laughed as the pandaren shook their heads. What did these strange humans find so funny? Suddenly, Mr. Fiji gasped, and whispered quickly into Haito's ear. Haito slapped a hand across his face with a shake of his head, grumbling. Mr. Fiji chuckled into a fist. The master baiter had already lost interest and was fumbling with mutli-colored threads, roping them together into elegant lures.

After outfitting themselves with some brand new gear, the pair headed out onto the wharf, greeting those they passed. Most were pandaren, and even the coy ones were friendly enough. On one of the barges of sand, Nat recognized what was one of the northern tuska people camping out, lazily fishing off the sand. On another barge, he noticed another creature, though this one was unknown to him.

With a strange, broad head that looked bizzarely like a dead, staring fish, it crouched low to the water, swirling the unmoving ocean around with a single finger, appearing to whisper to itself. As Nat looked on, the creature shot its strange empty gaze towards him, and Nat quickly looked away.

"What on Azeroth is _that_?" Nat asked, thumbing in the direction of the fish-person. Mr. Fiji turned and with one of his signature smiles, chuckled before explaining.

"That is one of the native _jinyu_ people, Mister Nat. He is what they call a 'water speaker'. He speaks with the water... or, erm, something like that."

"With the water?" John asked, giving his own look towards the jinyu before recoiling himself as it met his gaze back.

"Yes." Mr. Fiji answered. "They _are _rather strange, but they've made predictions before about the course the waters take and the future that is brought with them that have been eerily uncanny. Other times, their predictions never come true." Mr. Fiji shrugged. "It's odd and not always reliable, but they are a wise people, and there is merit in listening to them."

"If you say so." John said, shuddering as he dared give the jinyu another quick look.

John and Nat wasted no more time in seeking out a good spot to cast off, and soon they joined the rest of the wharfers in drinking, reeling and fisherman's tales. A few pandaren joined them at their spot, conversing with them as they fished. A female, her long hair tied back in a messy tail, kept asking them to tell her stories about other places they had fished at. What the places looked like, who lived there, what kind of fish they caught, if the fish they caught there were bigger than the ones they caught in pandaria. She was an adult, but her inquisitiveness was childlike and seemingly without end.

A male sat with John, the two exchanging frank accounts of dangerous big game catches, each fisherman enflating his tale with bigger and bigger lies to try and outdo the other.

Of course, there was drinking. Barrels of booze floated in the waters around them, kept cool by the ocean water. When one wanted a drink, all they had to do was pull the barrel in and grab a drink. Water was let into the barrels through small holes drilled into them, and while most fish couldn't fit through the holes, sometimes the occasional minnow or two would find themselves stuck inside. If you pulled a barrel in and there were minnow or other small fish stuck inside, the whole wharf gave a cheer and everyone quickly downed whatever drink they had.

The day wound forward and Nat and John got increasingly drunk, as did their pandaren fishing partners. Once, a bit of seaweed was mistaken for a small fish inside one of the booze barrels. The pandaren who made the false announcement hung his head down as he realized the seaweed was no fish, but everyone cheered and downed their drinks anyways.

Once, Nat looked over to the jinyu, who was now perched on a rock, his own drink in hand. The jinyu, with his emotionless, unmoving eyes and face raised his brew in salute. Nat did likewise and then both man and jinyu kicked mugs back.

John ended up catching a reef shark. It wasn't a very large catch by shark standards, but the beast was impressively strong and it took the fisherman over an hour to reel the sleek monster onto the docks, and that was only after he had had to jump in to plug a few more long, curved hooks into the shark's fins and tail. It was strung up and drying, pandaren hauling it up as the wharf fishers cheered.

As night fell, the party started but it hardly felt like anything 'started' so much as it simply continued, albiet in slightly redoubled spirit. There were no fireworks this time, nor any food. There was, however, a new boat shipped in filled to almost sinking with crates of fine wines and liqours or keg upon keg of beer. No one missed the fireworks or food.

As the night fell, lanterns, with thin sheets of brightly colored paper instead of glass panes, were lit and hung all over the wharf. As your vision blurred from the drinking, the lights seemed to bleed together and twinkle like stars of their own. There was much laughter and general party atmopshere upon the wharf, and yet for all the noise they made, the fishing barely slowed down at all. A boat passed infront of them, a passed out Mr. Fiji snoring loudly floating in it, several half-full beer kegs slowly sinking the craft as its occupant provided even more roaring laughter.

Nat was sitting with his legs in the water. He could swear something with sharp teeth kept biting his leg, but he was either too drunk to notice or care. Beside him, a pandaren was sitting and singing, throwing their mug back and forth. They wore a rather beautiful green dress and their hair was braided into two tight buns on their head. Maybe it was the alcohol or the blurred vision, but Nat decided the pandaren seemed, actually, fairly pretty. He put an arm around the pandaren's shoulder and blurted.

"Ey, b-baby, you might not- er, we might not... be the same, but, uh..." he shook his head to compose himself "we can show each other the 'best of both our worlds' if you know what I mean."

The pandaren paused, an offended look on its face, before it cracked into a smile and began laughing in a deep, male voice. Around him, others were joining in the laughter. Mr. Fiji, laughing himself, rolled out of his boat before passing out again.

Nat threw up.

Whatever else happened that night, no one could seem to ever recall. It was a ever-faster blur of bright lantern lights, laughter and more than a few people splashing over the wharf. Nat wasn't sure when he passed out, but the next morning he woke up sleeping in a rather awkward position on one of the rough wooden stairways of the wharf.

"Breakfast!" Haito called, clanging a metal spoon against a small gong, waking up the hungover partiers. Nat all but pulled his head up off the ground to look up at the noisy pandaren.

"What's for breakfast?" he asked, his voice as hollow as an empty beer keg.

Haito gave him a raised brow as he looked down and answered, "Sea turtle soup."

"Sounds delightful." Nat said. Then he threw up again.

Nat and John were still nursing their throbbing heads as they joined the pandaren in the lodge for breakfast. The soup was thick, creamy and filling. They also got a single hard bread roll and a small slice of fish. The food wasn't much, but there was more beer. The pandaren obviously slept off their hangovers far better than the men, and they were all active and loud as they conversed and laughed about last night and what they could and couldn't recall from it.

After breakfast, it was back to fishing, and though the atmosphere wasn't quite as electric as it was the day before, it was still a carefree and happy way to whittle away the monotony of the day. As they fished, however, Nat was suddenly summoned by one of the wharf guards, who after a quick tap on the shoulder, bade the man to go to the wharf lodge.

Nat, seeing no other choice but to oblige, reeled his line in, set his rod aside and wound his way up to the lodge. Certain he had probably done something wrong or in violation of a rule while he was drunk last night, Nat forsaw some sort of scolding or punishment. But as he entered into the lodge, he saw only Haito sitting alone with Mr. Fiji, large pieces of aged brown paper laying in a messy pile around them.

Haito looked up and gave a snort. "Nat, good to see you. Sit down." he directed. Nat approached the table and sat.

"About that fish you caught off the shores of the Jade Forest... what more details can you recall of it?" Haito inquired.

"Details?" Nat questioned.

Haito gave a slightly irritated flick of his eyes. "You know, exact sizes or weight? Could you recall anything?"

Nat frowned and shook his head. "Why does it matter?"

"Because." Haito started, sighing with impatience, but Mr. Fiji promptly cut the other pandaren off.

"Because," Mr. Fiji said, "We wanted to document any specific details about the catch, I'd have remembered myself, but it was quite a bit ago now, and the rigors of the journey didn't allow me to properly catch any statistics."

"Well, that... and, well, I lost the ones I took at the village..." Mr. Fiji stammered out, the blush in his cheeks almost visible through his thick fur.

Nat shook his head again. "I've no idea. It was at least, I'm not sure. Just around thirty feet?"

Haito grumbled, but leaned back in his chair and said nothing. The bamboo squeeked as he tapped a charcoal stick to the table. "Let's just say thirty feet..."

He scribbled a few things on one of the big sheets of paper, which Nat realized was an illustration of the same fish he had caught. "At some thirty feet, that would be one of the largest of that species ever caught..."

Mr. Fiji shrugged. "They said the giants were all gone. All fished up."

Haito tossed the charcoal stick down. "What bait were you running when you caught it?"

Nat bent his neck as he delved into his memory. "I just used a piece of wood I took off the ship, was all. A thick, fat splinter. I caught a rat, cut it open, and let the wood ferment in side for a few days."

Haito and Mr. Fiji both listened in silence. "Once it had absorbed the smell, nice and stinky, I cast it out."

Haito was rubbing his chin in what Nat may have mistaken as a dash of surprised respect. "And it was caught how far off the coast?"

"A ways." Nat answered. "I hooked it around a mile away, drug it with the boat for some time."

Haito hummed to himself as he picked up the charcoal stick and scribbled more notes. "That will be all." he said, dismissing Nat.

But Nat was slightly piqued. He stepped closer, looking over the papers. Each contained a single anatomical drawing of a fish, along with detailed information and scrawled notes that added to or amended certain factoids. It was kind of dictionary of fish. Haito was already snapping pieces up, reassembling them, but a single large sheet was caught by the gust of Haito's moving arms.

It was picked up into the air, and glided with silence to the ground, where it slid until it came to a stop right before Nat. Nat looked down, Haito cursed to himself.

Nat wasn't sure just what it was about the illustration that caught him and made him pick it up, but it was if something about the paper was calling to him. Nat didn't believe in destiny or prearranged coincidence, but he couldn't deny that something about the paper drew his attention to it. He reached down and picked it up. Holding it up to his face, he looked at the illustration.

It was obviously quite old, and was dimmed and worn away at by age and salty air, but it was still quite visible. It was a curious picture of a large, round fish. Normal circumstance would have passed it off as a rather plain and uninteresting fish, but something about this was... different.

"What fish is this?" Nat asked. Haito, wanting to snatch the paper from his hands but unable to do as much without damaging the ancient record sighed.

"Lay it on the table." he said.

Nat carefully laid it down, revealing it to the pandaren. Haito studied it for a moment, then answered.

"It's a _turtle fish_. It doesn't exist anymore. Probably."

"Turtle fish?" Nat questioned. It was an odd name, but he wanted to know more.

"It is named so because it is said that its strength was matched only by the patience of a turtle." Haito replied, already stuffing the paper back into the pile.

"Why do you say it doesn't exist anymore?" Nat asked, his brow creased tight.

"Overfished to extinction. We pandaren aren't perfect, and in the past we've forgotten to let the land replace what we take." he said with a slight pang of guilt.

"But why just 'probably'?"

"A turtle fish hasn't been seen, much less caught, in..." Haito quickly glanced at the record paper. "Two thousand years!" he said in a bit of shock. Scratching his head, he added, "I think a mogu was still emporer back then..."

Nat took a step toward the paper, suddenly overcome. He placed a dirty hand directly ontop of the record, and stared Haito deep in the eyes. "Let me study this a bit." he asked.

"Study? What? No!" Haito stammered out. "Get your hand off of it!"

Nat jerked his hand free of the paper, but kept his gaze locked on Haito.

"It isn't as if you could catch one, anyways, even if they did still exist!" Haito shot.

"If there's any still alive, I'm the man who could catch it." Nat stated.

"Bah!" spat Haito, who busied himself with collecting the rest of the pages.

"Just tell me what they wrote about catching one." Nat asked.

"No." Haito stated bluntly.

At this, Mr. Fiji interjected. "Now, Haito, if he wants to at least learn, there's no reason to deny him..."

"These are sensitive records!" Haito snapped. "For thousands of years pandaren fishermen have noted and renoted everything in here! You think I'm going to just hand that over to an _outsider_?"

Haito laughed with venom. "Yes, maybe I'll just hand it over, the way our people are just _handing over_ our land to the outsiders! Why not! Give it all away, let them take our homes and our heritage!"

Haito was going to continue, when Mr. Fiji silenced him with a single word.

"_Enough._"

Haito sat, silent, staring at Mr. Fiji.

"Mister Nat says that if there are any turtle fish left, he could catch one." Mr. Fiji began. "I would like to believe his claim, and though I do not think there are any turtle fish left to catch, our people did not document our history so well so that we could lock it away and only look at it when we want to remind ourselves how much we hate other people."

Haito sighed with anger, irritation but most of all, reluctant defeat. Arranging the stacked papers into a neat pile and without looking up from his work, he said, "I will make a single copy of it for Nat."

Mr. Fiji nodded.

"Now get out of here."

Mr. Fiji glanced at Nat and the two departed from the lodge. As they stepped out onto the docks, Nat looked out across the wild blue ocean.

If there was one of these "turtle fish" hiding somewhere out there in eternity, he'd be damned if he wasn't going to catch it. He'd be damned.

The day crept on like normal. John asked why Nat had been summoned away, and Nat told the truth; he'd been questioned about the fish he caught, though he left the curious turtle fish part out. As told recounted the story, several of the wharfmen gasped and whispered among themselves. It seemed almost everyone was privvy to the rumor of Nat's catch.

After the whispered stopped, the questions started.

"Was it truly as big as Mr. Fiji guessed it was?"

"Did you really catch it barehanded?"

"Was it as delicious as Mr. Fiji said it was?"

"Do you think you could teach me how you did it?"

"Why couldn't you have brought it here, for us to see?"

"Did you really catch it barehanded?!"

Fisherman crowded around Nat, one by one, bombarding him with questions. John fervently attempting to remind everyone that he helped catch it, too.

Nat did he best to field the publicity, but was a little too drunk at that point to deal with it. Just as he was becoming completely over his head, a sharp whistle cut through the air and the pandaren silenced. Nat, somewhat curious what sort of whistle could have stopped the incessent questioning but mostly just relieved it was over, tried in vain to peer over the tops of the tall pandaren fishermen.

The pandaren parted, shuffling out a path between them across the swaying dock as Haito marched between them, a rolled parchment clasped in his hand. Without a word he approached Nat and thrust the parchment towards him, brandished like a dagger.

Nat took the roll and nodded in thanks. Haito gave a slow draw of his brow, then turned and left, leaving a silent crowd of curios pandaren behind.

"What's that?" John said, looking at the tidy white scroll with a small frown.

Nat felt the soft, light scroll in his hand, absorbing its texture. He turned to his friend and with a wink, answered, "It's why I came here."

The questions turned to congratulations as the pandaren hailed Nat (and to his delight, John as well) before slowly dispersing, back to their fishing spots. But the aire of desire was obvious. The pandared were curious what Nat had been given, but none wanted to ruin their chance of finding out first by pushing the question too much. They'd bide their time. For now.

"So, really, what _is _it?" John asked as the pair sat alone again, this time perched on the side of one of the ocean rocks.

Nat unrolled the scroll, revealing a miniature recreation of the larger paper back in the lodge. "This, my friend, is a _turtle fish_."

"Turtle fish?" John said. "What's a turtle fish?"

"Extinct, probably. Or so Haito says." Nat said, studying the paper. "But I'm going to catch one."

John huffed. "Well, "Turtle Fish" is a bit bland sounding to me. This ones all yours, buddy." he clapped Nat on the shoulder before returning to fishing. "I'm going to break the record for sharks caught. They say it's been held for over two-hundred years, but this place hasn't seen a hook like _mine_."

"How many have you caught so far?" Nat asked.

"One."

"What's the record?"

"I dunno- four-thousand-something. I wasn't listening that much."

The day rolled by and Nat reserved himself to tuck the paper, folded neatly, into his robes for the day. As he fished, several pandaren approached him, a fresh beer in hand. They made small talk for a few moments before mentioning how interesting a certain piece of paper seemed to look. Nat, enjoying the pandaren's attempts to pry open his rumor, dodged the question. Each time the pandaren left, annoyed and discontent; their gift of a fresh beer gone for naught.

That night, as John snored in his boat, Nat sat up on the darks in the cool night breeze, a small candle lit as he studied the paper intently. He'd been looking at it for several minutes already, but he couldn't get rid of a strange call this mysterious fish had on him.

_Turtle Fish_ it was called. Such a strange, ordinary sounding name. And yet...

The illustration on the paper was as vauge as the one on the original record. It was just a round fish with some flippers, gills, two eyes, a tail. Nothing that should seem so captivating or calling. And yet...

Around the drawing, of course, were the notes. Neatly reprinted in sleak charcoal, Nat read them over and over. They were almost as vauge as the charcoal sketch of the fish itself, some notes were dated, others were not. Some were concise information, others were just short blurbs. The other pages of records seemed much fuller and with far more organized information. The fact that this 'turtle fish' entry seemed a mess of random factoids seemed to only deepen the questions concerning it rather than relieve.

"_Grandfisher Aso caught a young turtle fish, eigth day of the summer season. Catch weighed over 40 brew kegs, couldn't lift it onto dock. Used skull as new ship figurehead. Everyone is jealous._"

"_My father used to be a slave under Warlord-Emporer Kai-jin. One day, far out at sea on a war vessel, the ship was struck by what my father recognized as a turtle fish. The hull was completely smashed and the mogu, unable to swim, all drowned. The pandaren floated to safety and my father was free that day._"

"_Caught large turtle fish on _[date illegible] _measured 32 standard feet across, couldn't manage to get an accurate weight. It died stuck on the beach because we couldn't move it. Its stomach was full of everything from other fish and chunks of coral to entire fishing rods and nets. The turtle fish seems to eat whatever it pleases._"

"_No teeth. Swallows whole?_"

"_The turtle fish is a collosal beast, larger than some whales. Legend says that the emporers who shaped pandaria used turtle fish to pull the lands into place. That legend is stupid. From recorded stomach contents and my own observed ones, the turtle fish appears to be completely opportunistic feeder, eating meat and vegetation. Its small, beak-like mouth, however, means it probably doesn't eat anything larger than it can swallow. It appears to take baits that mimic small fish, I wish I could study a live one and see what behaviours it offers. No real signs of having natural predators, but several carcasses have had strange, sucker-like wounds on them. What could possibly be large or bold enough to do such a thing to a creature like this, and why? In an ammendment to my previous writing, a dead turtle fish washed up on shore yesterday. Its soft stomach was torn open by what appeared to be shark bites. It was young and small, but still larger than any shark. Perhaps the turtle fish is more docile?"_

"_Caught a female full of eggs, it was swimming in plain view around reefs. Could it have been planning to lay its eggs there?"_

"_A turtle fish was caught for the first time in hundreds of years today! July 12th by the standard calander. It was small and took four pandaren to bring in. When we got it to shore, it bounced off, twenty feet into the air! Back into the ocean, it vanished."_

"_Got a confirmed weight on the bones of a turtle fish. Unwhole skeleton weighed in at around 2,400 pounds." _

"_Turtle fish can be caught with anything."_

He read each carefully, unsure what to believe and what not to believe within in the recounts. He worked his eyes, scanning the words, until he once again reached the final entry.

"_It has been over a thousand years since the last entry, and over eight times that since the first. As I re-write the record scrolls, no more information of this 'turtle fish' has come to surface. All other information has been baseless and without proof or merit. -Wharfwarden Jiakio"_

Nat hadn't been on the wharf for long, but he'd become fairly well aquainted with most pandaren upon it. If not in name, than at least in role. He wasn't sure he knew any of them that fit the "Wharfwarden" title, even the commanding Haito. It wasn't much of a start, but it was something. He was Nat Pagle, he'd worked out more than this starting from even less. Finding a fish was what he did. The lull of the ocean waves and the reading slowly drew him to sleep, face first on the black charcoal turtle fish.

Morning rose and Nat found himself waking up rather early. With a quick, tired glance at the now wet and crumpled paper below him, he shook away his waking stupor and snatched the turtle fish up, all but rushing up to the large wharf lodge.

As he passed some of the earlier rising pandaren, several of them stopped to give him coy chuckles or knowing smiles. Nat ignored them as he scaled staircase after staircase to reach the lodge. Slipping inside its open doors, he stepped into the main room, where some of the pandaren were enjoying their breakfast. Haito sat at a table by himself, peeling a fruit with his claws. Nat strode over and sat down without a word, the pandaran giving an annoyed scruffle of his nose at the intrusion.

"What is it, Nat Pagle?" Haito questioned.

Nat slapped the paper on the table infront of them. "I have some questions."

"Questions?" Haito asked. "About what? The turtle fish? One would wonder why you have any questions, considering you've already caught it."

Nat, confused, sat in silence. Haito, with a clawed finger, pointed on his own face, rolling his eyes. Nat reached a hand up, feeling his cheek. Withdrawing the hand, he found it faintly black with charcoal soot. He frowned as he put all the pieces together in his head. Now he knew why he was getting so much attention on his way to the lodge.

Haito, tired of their meeting already, sighed. "What is it, Nat?"

Nat, only making the charcoal stains smudge worse by rubbing them in an attempt to remove, answered back, "Right here, the last entry, it was written by someone who was a 'wharfwarden'. You seem to know a lot about this place. What can you tell me about that."

Haito, clearly reluctant to bother but looking down anyways, reread the text. "That was Jiakio. He was the wharf's last warden. Some two hundred years ago, now."

Putting his attention back to peeling the fruit, Haito continued. "The wharf used to have wardens, now and again. They served as sort of military commanders in times when the wharf required more... prominent defendings."

"So even that was written two hundred years ago?" Nat asked.

"Yes, Nat." Haito parroted back dryly, before biting into his fruit.

Whoever this Jiakio was, he was clearly long gone. So much for that potential lead. Without any other word, Nat got up and walked out to leave the lodge. From behind him, he heard Haito call, "Try some water on your face!"

Nat walked into the weak morning twilight, turning to prop himself by his arms over the wooden railing of the wharfside, looking out over the ocean. He still wasn't sure what about this fish had suddenly captivated him so much. There had to be hundreds of fish like it, ancient and lost to time, told only through stories and quips ages upon ages old. What seemed to stick out so much about this one? Why?

He shrugged. He was nothing if never too deep a man. If he was going to catch this so called 'turtle fish', he'd have a lot better chance doing so by actually fishing. So off he went.

He found John, up and fishing off the side of a pier. He joined his friend, casting off beside him.

"Nice face art." John quipped.

"Did it myself." Nat shot back, accepting a dark jug of sweet smelling brew.

The two sat there for a time, silently not catching anything, before Nat found himself asking, "John, do you believe in anything like 'destiny' or 'a sudden purpose handed to you by the universe and fates unknown?'."

"Nope." John said, trying fruitlessly to untangle a messy snag in his line.

"Same here." Nat told himself, as he tried to force back the memory of the turtle fish record slipping through the air and landing at his feet.

As the day went on, John caught another shark, which while on his hook was eaten by a larger shark, which John brought in. John counted it as two sharks, but Haito insisted it only be recorded as a single catch. Eventually the debate turned serious as John and Haito sat on the docks infront of one another, choking down an entire keg of beer each, pandaren abandoning their fishing around them in a crowd, cheering on a conflict they didn't care about but were happy to egg on.

Mr. Fiji, humming to himself, was walking up the dock, pulling a net to his side along the surface of the water, catching the small bait fish that collected at the dock edges to scavanage for food scraps tossed overwharf. Lost in their respective fishing, Mr. Fiji nearly collided with Nat.

"Oh! Excuse me, Mister Nat!" Mr. Fiji laughed, before cocking his furry head to examine Nat. "You should try some water on that." he said, rubbing his chin.

"One more drink." Nat replied, cracking open a fresh jug.

Mr. Fiji stopped beside Nat, pulling in the finely woven net and hauling in a bounty of shimmering bait fish. "I heard you had asked Haito about the last wharfwarden." Mr. Fiji began, betraying his otherwise seemingly random encountering with Nat.

"I did." Nat answered, reeling in another empty hook. "Apparently the guy died hundreds of years ago, but he claimed the turtle fish didn't exist."

Mr. Fiji chuckled into a smile. "Old Jiakio was always so stern."

Nat turned a cocked brow to the pandaren. Mr. Fiji returned a smile.

"Two hundred years is quite a time, yes!" Mr. Fiji said as he wound the net around an arm, letting the water drip out back into the ocean. "I was only a young cub, in the valley, when Jiakio went to be with the spirits in the mist."

Nat was silent, his line motionless as it was only halfway reeled in. "He lived to be one-hundred and seventy-two, I was told. He was trying to outlive my home village's eldest dragon turtle." Mr. Fiji's smile opened into a nostalgic grin as he shook his head. "I still visit that dragon turtle from time to time."

"Jiakio was a very, shall I put it, "no nonsense" type of pandaren. He never believed in anything silly like 'destiny' or 'fate' or 'purpose'." Mr. Fiji wrapped the net up further, preparing to take it back to one of the bait barrels, to lay its quarry out for the fishermen to fill their hooks with. "Do you believe in any of those things, Mister Nat?"

Mr. Fiji strode off, humming to himself.

Remembering some of the records that told of turtle fish biting on small fish, Nat switched not to any small fish, but to tiny pieces of fruit and salted meats that they received for meals. Nat resolved to catch a turtle fish _if any lived here or at all anymore_, his resolve meant nothing if the turtle fish truly was just a relic of the questionable past. To determine if a beast like the turtle fish was still around anymore, his best bet was to start from the bottom- and fish up.

All through the day he got bites, from all over the wharf. Small, colorful fish of all sizes took his baits. From his own experience and the bounties the other fishermen were having, combined with John's catch of a third (or fourth, if you asked John himself) small shark, the conclusion was obvious. There was enough food to support a bustling biosystem of tiny fry fish of all shapes, sizes and species, to the point that larger predatory fish like sharks were also purusing the warm shallows. Beneath the waves it was a rainbow of exotic sealife.

But what else was down there? Nat switched it up, using larger pieces of meat, sacrificing his daily meals into bait. He caught of larger sizes, most that he'd never seen before anywhere in his travels or textbooks back home. Broad-headed, smooth-scaled koi that looked like they swam out of elegant paintings took most of his hooks. They were beautiful fish, but Nat unhooked them with caution, keeping his fingers away from their stout razor-like teeth.

He also tried actual bait fish and lures resembling them. Fishing up curious long-snouted tropical gar, their interlocking teeth small but sharp enough to cut into the hard wooden dock boards. A few times he hooked strange fish that were nonsensical myriads of equal parts color and spine. The first time he caught such a fish, one of the other fishermen gasped in surprise and shock and quickly cut Nat's line, cautioning him about the dangers of touching one of the alien fish's colorful barbs.

The next time he caught such a fish, however, Nat latched onto his hook with a long piece of bent wire as he reeled the fish in, carefully sliding it onto the dock to lay it flat on the ground, to reduce the fish's ability to flail around. It was a beautiful creature even as it lay on the docks, its soft body compressing under the weight of the open atmosphere, causing its pretty spines to fold and droop into themselves as if they were too heavy to hold up. But something about it, in a natural and primal way, warned of the danger of getting to close. After some observation, Nat gingerly removed his hook and used the metal wire to slip it back into the sea, where its drooping barbs sprung back to motion and life and the fish swam off, its bright colors molding once more into the darkness.

He caught octupi, squid and cuttlefish in an array of colors and patterns. He caught a few other creatures with probing tentacles that he had no idea what to classify as. One evening, as a black storm was brewing on the horizon, dozens upon dozens of bizzarely flying fish bombarded the wharf, smashing into surprised fisherman as the pandaren laughed and dodged this way and that to try avoiding the strange assault.

"Flying fish!" Mr. Fiji laughed out loud as he wandered around the docks, picking up the fish unlucky enough to not make it over the wharf docks. "They were fleeing the storm!"

Jungle steam whafted off of the trees of the far coast, floating in thin dying whisps above their heads over the wharf. There was quite a curious bounty to be had, indeed, in this great soup bowl at the bottom of the world.

A bounty that was large, diverse and structured enough to support giants.

There was little question as to why the pandaren kept their wharf in the same spot for so many thousands of years- it worked, and worked well. Through luck or some calculated force, the pandaren had found what seemed to be the perfect fishing spot. Nat broke out a heavy duty, metal-reinforced rod and baited it with a large chunk of octopus meat. He'd saw the food chain, now it was time to see what that food chain was supporting.

He cast out long with several metal sinkers clasped a few feet up the line from the hook and bait, letting the currents underneath the surface waves suck the bait further out into the void, pulling up on the rod as he felt the bait hit sand, bobbing it further along the sea floor until it was almost his entire line's length out. Then, he slowly began reeling it in. The bait lifted from the sand and floated as it was pulled back to the wharf, the sinkers causing the line to cut low underneath the lighter bait, making the meat wave back and forth like an injured fish.

They were some hundreds of yards off the coast, sitting on the ocean-facing side of multiple rows of hard coral reef, the corals acted like barriers, not allowing larger fish close to most of the shorelines, but out here on the wharf it was like a veil cast aside. They were a tiny island, suspended on the opening precipice of a world unknown to man and pandaren alike. Nat felt a heavy, powerful tug at his line that nearly jerked the rod from his hands. A small piece of that unknown world was about to become known.

At first it felt like Nat was simply pulling against the bottom of the ocean, it felt tell-tale as a bite, but then turned into nothing, like the sand itself simply swallowed up the bait and refused to spit it back up. He sat, patient, applying a constant pressure upwards. After nearly half an hour, the sea floor gave out for a second, a snap of tension rattling up his line and into his arms. Nat immeditely reeled in hard, feeling a few precious inches gained. The unmovable force reasserted itself and Nat held his line steady, keeping a constant and unwavering pressure upwards. Soon enough, the force let up once again and Nat reeled in, this time taking twice as much line. This dance continued for two hours, a dance of statues turning to motion turning to statue again. Nat's arms were burning and throbbing, his back creaking with pain. But he kept his pressure on. He never let up.

Finally, the force surrendered itself. Nat wasted no moments reeling it in completely, the black sea turning to an even blacker bulge as the water grew out and parted, revealing his catch. By now, several pandaren were watching the battle and cheered as Nat finally brought the beast up from the deeps. Long, dark and oblong in shape, the fish slapped the water with two mighty flippers. A tail, long and straight, flicked in the water behind it.

"That's the biggest ray I've ever seen!" one of the fisherman whooped.

Nat fell back on his butt, exhausted and woefully over-sober. Three of the pandaren were already splashing fearlessly into the water, roping up the massive ray.

That night, they had yet another party. The ray, smoked in smoldering ashes, floating out on a curious barge circling the wharf, provided the party's main course. Beer provided its second course. And the third course. And the fourth course. Pretty much every other course after that, as well.

The ray had been measured and weighed. At fourty feet across and well over some four-thousand pounds, it was the largest sea ray ever caught in pandaren history. It was long, elegant and beautiful. A truely unique treasure, plucked deep from the sea for them to appreciate. Damn did it taste good smoked.

Most of the meat was being salted for packing, to be boated out to the main land and distrubted wherever it was needed, but even a small amount of it was more than enough to feed the entire party throughout the night. Nat, drunk out of his wits, was tromping down the deck, his flesh sore but proud from the constant barrage of claps his shoulders and back got as he paraded about the wharf, retelling his story of catching the ray in ways that made it seem exciting and fast paced, as opposed to a rather boring trial of physical endurance.

John had caught yet another shark that had been hooked up to dry. He was off, mumbling around the shark about how "rays were just sharks that gave up", occasionally pouring a swig of beer down the open shark's dead mouth, hiccuping about how it was great to have someone understand.

Somehow or another, Nat found himself stepping onto the dock where no dock actually was, and he tumbled face first from the wharf. Landing in very shallow water, he coughed out a mouthful of salty sea and rubbed his stinging eyes clear, as he looked up, he realized he had fallen onto one of the surrounding sand barges. In the middle of the barge, a lone figure set, slowly sipping a mug as it peered deeply into the water.

It spoke. "The waters told me you'd arrive to me." in a bubbly, wet, almost incomprehensible voice it spoke to Nat.

Nat, propping himself up on his arms, looked towards the figure, his blurry double vision eventually coming to enough that he recognized that he had landed before the strange local jinyu. "R-really?" Nat babbeled out, sand stuck between his teeth.

"No." the jinyu said. "I just heard you fall over the dock."

The jinyu rose, taking one last look at the moonlit water before facing Nat. "The water has told me things about you, though."

Somehow in his drunkeness, Nat recalled Mr. Fiji describing the jinyu's ability to read the future in water, as well as their occasional unreliability. "What did the water say?" Nat said, the beer making him strangely curious.

The jinyu, facing Nat with a face that bore no expression, its large open mouth sucking in air, set its mug down and walked over to Nat. Webbed, slimey feet leaving a trail in the sand behind its steps. Kneeling down, it offered a smooth hand to Nat.

Nat, not sure what else he could do, took the hand and was lifted to his feet. "Come." the jinyu bade.

Nat followed the strange jinyu to the spot where it had been peering into the water. "What do you know about water, Nat Pagle?" it asked, its voice toneless but still with an edge of legitimate curiosity.

"Fish... live in it." Nat said, swaying. He was too drunk for this; or _maybe_ he was just drunk _enough_ for this. He wasn't sure.

"They do." the jinyu spoke without a hint of condenscending nature in his voice. Kneeling over the water once more, he asked, "But what do you know about what _we _can learn from the water?"

"I have no idea." Nat admitted, trying to spit the sand from his mouth.

"You want to catch a turtle fish." the jinyu said.

Nat felt a wave of shock and sobriety hit him. "How did you know?"

The jinyu didn't answer, but instead spoke on, "The waters do not tell me whether or not you will ever catch one, but out of my own curious nature, I asked them."

"Asked 'them' what?" Nat said, his brows drawing tight.

"I asked the waters if they had any turtle fish still inside of them. If it was more than a myth."

Nat was silent for what he felt was a rather long time before he choked out, "And?"

The party and the commotions seemed so far away now. A world away, even. Now, in some strange instant, all that existed was Nat, drunk, and the jinyu. Alone on the sandy barge, the man swaying and drunk. The jinyu looking deep into gently rolling waters.

"More people know of your new personal quest than you think, Nat Pagle." Nat wasn't sure how to take the words. They were worded curiously like a threat, but he felt the jinyu meant no harm.

"Some of them think it's foolish. That there is no more turtle fish, that there probably never was any to begin with. That turtle fish were just some out-of-proportion fisherman's legends, passed down through generations. Kept alive through rumor and lies."

The jinyu slowly looked up at Nat again, staring deeply with his emotionless, empty eyes. "You are known well to the waters. They've met you many times, all over this world. Some pandaren don't know there's any world outside their island, but I do. The jinyu have learned from the waters since before there were any pandaren. Before any Thunder Kings or emporers or mists. Before this land was 'Pandaria'."

Nat had no idea what half of the jinyu's words really meant, but he was listening intently now.

"The waters know your skill, your expertise. If you seek for one, there will be ones to find."

The jinyu said nothing more. It turned its fat, strange head back to the water, and looked into it once again. Nat stood there, watching the jinyu look on motionlessly into the ocean.

The roar of the party cut through the silence that had seemed to cling in the air, as the bubble around the man and jinyu evaporated into the cool sea night. Nat shook his head, spared one last look at the jinyu, and then waded through the waters, finding his way back to the docks to rejoin the party and drink away the eerie encounter with the silent, unmoving jinyu who listened to the waters.

Nat woke up hanging over one of the wooden railings of the upper docks, puke dried on his chin. Catching an unfortunate glance into the bright, burning sun as he awoke, Nat fell down onto the hard wood of the dock.

He barely remembered anything from the moment he had his first drink the previous night, but slowly images and voices swirled in his throbbing mind and he recalled, with perfect sharpness and accuracy, his meeting with the jinyu. At the time, he was too drunk to barely comprehend their exchange but his memory seemed a perfect recollection, beset on either side by the fuzzy haze of extreme drunkeness. It was like an island, alone, sitting by itself in a sea of nothing. He shook his head and repressed the memory for the moment being. For now, he had to worry about how he was going to pick himself up.

After several minutes of attempting to negotiate the wooden rail and find himself to his feet, Nat threw up one more time and made his way to the lodge. The lodge, by now, was already packed full of pandaren, filling their somehow empty stomachs up with their breakfast before beginning another new day of fishing and drinking.

Nat spotted John, who was slowly nursing his hangover with a bowl of cold porridge. Nat slogged over and joined his friend.

"You look like hell." John said, looking at Nat as he stumbled down into his chair.

"Look who's talking." Nat replied, pressing his palms hard into the sides of his head, trying to prevent his skull from popping.

"Want some porridge?" John meekly yawned out, pushing his untouched bowl of lumpy meal towards Nat.

Nat felt a belch deep inside his innards. "I'll pass."

After a few hours of sitting and telling themselves they wouldn't drink again for a week, Nat and John strolled out of the lodge, beer mugs in hand, ready to get back to fishing.

"I thought I caught another shark last night, but it was just some drunk guy who was passed out in the water." John said. "Dunno who the bloke was, though."

Nat suddenly seemed to recall the fuzzy memory of splashing wildly in the water, a hook stuck in his foot, but quickly repressed it. He was sure the wound on his foot was just from walking on a nail or something, probably.

"That, I must admit, was a hell of a ray you caught yesterday." John said, slamming a hand on Nat's already tender shoulder. "Well, even _if _rays are just sharks that gave up." he added.

Nat, outwardly, was proud of his catch, but inwardly, it left him feeling a bit wanting. When he first snagged the ray, there was a fleeting, escaping moment of hope. Hope that he had, somehow, come to find the end of his line at a turtle fish. But hope evaporated quickly as he came to realize he was dealing with the telltale behaviours of a ray.

It was still a big fish, though.

And it proved something else; that the food chain not only supported giants, but did indeed host them. There were also the strange words of the jinyu, but Nat wasn't quite sure how much faith he put into them. Fact dictated monsters were lurking beneath their wooden docks, but perhaps a little bit of local faith wouldn't hurt his chances.

John and Nat made there way to a fishing spot, Nat stopping here and there along the way to accept gratitudes for the party last night, though he only gave a reason for it; he didn't exactly host it himself. Nat was nonchalant, but his encounter the previous day, while leaving him a bit discontent, redoubled his eagerness to get a line in the water.

He was fishing with the rod he'd used to catch the ray, and in a stroke akin to that of the mysterious jinyu water-reader, Nat fashioned a strip of raw ray meat to his hook, cut from a long strip of meat he'd left rotting in the sun from his catch. Unwrapping the slimey meat from its cloth wrapper, Nat wouldn't have been able to handle the stenchy fish smell if he wasn't so preoccupied with carefully lining his hooks with it. Today, he had tied not one but five different hooks to his line, all few dozen feet apart. Attaching a hunk of meat to each, he began boarding into a boat docked at the wharf's side.

"Jeez, Nat!" John complained, pinching his nose. "Go somewhere else with that stuff, would ya?"

Nat winked as he was stepping into the boat. "That's the idea."

Rowing out until he could barely see the wharf anymore, he slowly dropped the end of his line overboard, letting it sink out as he began rowing back towards the wharf. The hooks, their fermented meat baits attached tightly, glistened in the sun beneath the water as they dropped into nothing. Nat was letting his line run out from the pole, having woven thrice as much line into his reel the previous night before the party had begun. In time, he was back at the wharf and his baits were set, yards out of view in the vast ocean.

The day passed, and nothing was biting. Nat yawned, drowning his boredom out with beer. Try as he might, he couldn't help but keep imagining the charcoal drawing of the turtle fish. His mind, wandering, kept trying to fill in all the blanks. What color was it? What was its actual shape? How long were its fins? Did it swim upright or was it flat? What did this creature look like, slipping through the deeps, letting itself be spotted once every few eons for brief encounters with their world before falling back into the annals of history, its very existence in the first place called into question?

How much of what was said about it was true? Did one of these things really smash through the hull of a ship? Did partial skeletons really weigh so much? If he ever caught one, could he bring it in? What would he do with it?

Ultimately, however, every single question possible invariably led back to the one single question: Why could he not stop thinking about this fish?

It had all happened so fast, so unexpectedly. He came to the wharf, he fished at it, he found out about a so called 'turtle fish' and now every moment of his day was spent ignoring the nagging desires to learn as much as possible about this fish that by all accounts he shouldn't have spared a second thought on. And yet...

A tug on his line. He snapped to attention. First a faint tug, then nothing. The nothing for a few more moments. Then nothing still. Nat frowned. He jerked in the opposite direction of the initial tug, and felt the line run slack again as the hook fell, unset. He wasn't after another ray.

Hours later, a second bite. It was swift, sudden and he felt the line tug tight and begin veering off in the reel, following the fish's run. He sighed again. He had a feeling the turtle fish was no shark. Eventually, with no response from his end, the shark broke line and took the hook with it.

There were no more bites on his line that day.

The next day, life resumed much the same as before. John was catching more and more sharks, the pandaren were fishing per usual and Haito eyed John and Nat whenever he walked by them. No one had yet wanted to know why Nat wasn't catching anymore fish. Nat stuck to his original plan, but this time tried pieces of fruit on each hook. After an exhausting row from and back to the wharf, Nat sat, all day in the sun. Never a single bite.

It was a strange thing sometimes. Fishing, that is. No matter what you did or how hard you tried, the fish itself is what decided whether or not you got to catch anything. A good fisherman wasn't good at catching fish, a good fisherman was good at persuading fish. Fishing was unlike and removed from any other form of hunting or, indeed, combat of any kind. Fishing was about knowing your enemy. Everything about them. Their habitat, their diet, their feeding and reproduction behaviours. Everything that made them what they were, you had to know. Even then, all you gained from it was slightly increased chances.

Fishing from the ocean like this, too, was completely different from any lake or river fishing. Lakes, even massive ones, were their own tidy worlds. Everyone knew everyone's name and everyone knew where everyone lived. It was simple, for the most part. Rivers? Fish couldn't hide if they were invisible.

But here, out on the ocean, all holds were off. There was more pure surface area than all the land on Azeroth combined and it sunk down for miles on miles on miles. Even if you knew just how to find what you wanted to catch, you'd never find it on purpose. You'd find it once you put enough hooks in the water and the fish decided you'd wasted enough time. Sometimes even then, the fish might never manage to find you.

Fishers couldn't be choosers. You got what you got and you made the best of it. For years, Nat was content with this, but then he realized as he got better, that it was finding ways to give him more control that really excited him. Maybe he just got bored of throwing a line into the water and using the wait as an excuse to not do anything else. Maybe he wanted to grow as a person. Maybe outsmarting a fish roused some kind of deeply rooted fish hatred he never knew he habored. Who knows. He sure didn't, and he sure didn't bother himself to ask why. Bad enough he suddenly felt driven to apply _efforts _to what he was doing, he didn't have to dig into the philosophical messes concerning just _why_.

But one way or another, here he was. Weeks had gone by and he hadn't increased his chances of finding a scribble he saw on a piece of paper into a fish on the end of his hook. All things came with patience, he once heard. It was only a matter of applying the desire to outwait that patience.

Such a dumb quote, he always thought. With alcohol, there was no such thing as patience. All he ever had to do was get drunk and not stop getting drunk until somewhere, someplace, some fish decided he'd waited long enough.

There was a tug on his line.

He sat back, trying to quickly down the rest of his mug before dealing with his rod. As days turned to weeks and he never caught anything else, talks began to spread across the wharf. Slowly and fickle at first, but eventually everyone was curious. Why had the great Nat Pagle suddenly ceased at catching anything? Was he more preformer than fisherman? Making them wait for his next 'greatest catch' so he could ride the applause and adoration? Others claimed Nat might have never had any talent to begin with. Just a guy who got lucky and managed not to die on his way here.

The line tugged again. Nat belched, wiped his mouth, and set to setting the hook. What was it this time? Ray? Shark? Another giant squid?

The line lurched. The rod, normally in a slight arc, silently pulled straight. Nat snorted in curiosity and then set the line. There was a strange, unexpected tremor that ran up the line. The reel shuddered. The shock ran into his hands, jostling them. He frowned and stood from his casual sitting position. What was on the end of his line?

John glanced over at his friend. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "Finally got a bite?"

John walked stepped over. "What's it feel like?"

Without warning, Nat's line suddenly spun out incredibly quickly. The line was so fast, a thin whisp of smoke actually floated from the reel case. Nat didn't even think he could possibly stop the reel from giving line, to do so with that much force pulling on it would have snapped the line in a second. The pull, however, stopped, the line still tight and pulling, but at least not giving out any longer. Nat had the uncanny feeling that he wasn't in control of this at all.

John gave a sharp, short whistle. "Must be a pretty big shark!" he said. "You know how they'll run a bit then stop, always trying to gain depth. It-" but John got no further.

Another tremor rattled up the line, this time shaking completely through Nat and down into the docks. Nat fell to his knees, cursing as he skinned flesh on the rough wood. Even John had to brace himself, standing with locked knees, his face suddenly dropped low into worry.

"Nat..." he said, looking out into the water. "What the hell did you hook?"

Nat said nothing, his fingers were gripped tight around his rod. He wanted to stand up, but feared another tug would catch him and pull him over the dock. As it was, he was at the complete mercy of whatever he had hooked.

"Nat..." John said again. "_What did you hook?_"

Another tug. Nat flew forward, catching himself on a raised beam on the side of the dock. One arm holding himself to the beam, the other still gripping his rod.

"Piss on the Light, Nat!" John said, swooping down to wrap his arms around Nat's chest and pull the other man back. "What is that? A whale?"

It was no whale, though it seemed to have the power of one. Nat had caught whales on rod before, in the north. Whales were impressive things to bring in on rod alone, but they were slow and for all their size and strength, were docile on the end of a line. Whatever was on Nat's line was anything but docile.

Nat was groaning as his arms were stretched, the pressure to keep hold of dock and rod increasing by the instant. With no warning, the force doubled, then doubled again. Soon, Nat was screaming out loud, refusing to let go of his catch. John was pulling with all his strength, but it was worthless. He was slowly losing hold on the dock.

"Let go Nat!" he shouted. Other fisherman had noticed the commotion and the peculiar tremors shaking their wharf. Several had already gathered around Nat and John, and were now gripping around the two men, pulling back against the unstoppable weight.

"Let go!" John shouted again. The beams that held the wharf secured into the sea floor where creaking and lurching in their holds, bending forward and threatening to crack under the force. "Let go!"

Nat couldn't let go. He'd spent weeks now, fishing for this. To let simply let go...

Now everyone on the wharf was at the attention of Nat's catch.

"What's happening?!" one of the fisherman shouted. It was if the entire wharf was being pulled now, the foundations that had stood in place for thousands of years in the salty waters tested to their limits. Above the docks, Nat was fighting simply to keep his arms attached to himself. He was pulled back now, both arms secure on the rod. The line he was using was woven hundreds of years ago by tuskar natives and though it too was being stretched to its limit, it held. The wharf lurched and moaned in the water, small cracks beginning to slither up some of the beams, sending miniature explosions of tiny wood flakes out of their wake.

"_Let go!_"

He couldn't. He couldn't let go. Not now. Not now that he was this close. His muscles were exhausted, but he forced himself to take the rod by one hand as he pulled his now free one, quivering and covered in sweat, up to the reel. He tried to pull the reel around, but it was stuck, like a rusted lever. His eyes closed, his teeth grit, he pulled back on it as hard as he could manage. A loud '_crack!_' was all he produced, as the reel snapped in half.

Beside them, one of the wooden holding beams exploded, splitting down the middle. Splinters of wood flying out like shrapnel as ancient wood dust billowed into the air.

"_Let go!_"

Nat's rod, as if to follow suit with the dock beam, snapped into pieces, the line finally breaking. The wharf slammed back into place, sending everyone and everything upon it flying back. Fisherman and broken pieces of wood fell into the water or were thrown against the hard ocean rocks. The great lodge broke from its foundations and teetered dangerously over the edge of the wharf.

Nat's weak vision was obscured with thick, red crimson. He tried blinking it away, but it was no use. His face was washed in his own blood, bleeding from a large gash on his forehead. Black soon ate out the blood, and Nat felt his head spinning lower and lower and lower, as if it were sinking deep into the cold, dark ocean.

Nat had come to a short time later, cushioned on several cots on the floor of the lodge. The devestation of the wharf, while wide spread and quite sever in some places, had been attended to immediately by the pandaren fishermen. The lodge was roped, chained and hauled back onto its foundations and freshly rebolted to the wharf. Nat was now laying there, every muscle in his body shouting at him in pain and anger.

He had been placed on the soft cots while he was passed out. The gash on his forehead, which he earned when his pole had snapped in half and flew back to strike him in the face, was bandaged up. The thick blotch of red across the white bandages grew ever so slightly larger and darker with each minute, and the skin underneath his left eye was so deep black it looked like a burn wound.

Other than feeling like he might have died, however, Nat was fine. Aside, of course, from the sounds of pounding mallets and wood upon wood and other noisy construction from outside the lodge, where the wharf was still being repaired. Each hammerfall or crash of lumber made his head pound in agony, and try as he might, he couldn't get back to any sleep. Nat wasn't sure just when, but sometime in the day John visited him.

"Hungry?" John questioned, a bowl of cold soup in his hands.

Nat shook his head.

"How about thirsty?" John let a half full jug dangle from his hand.

Each sip sent hot shocks of pain through his already throbbing head, but eventually the liqour began to nullify the pain. At least a little bit.

"Everyone's talking about your hook, Nat!" John spoke excitedly after Nat had sipped from the jug a bit. "I don't even think any of them are angry about the wharf, not even Haito. They keep saying they want to finish repairs as quick as possible so they can catch whatever it was you had hooked."

John was sitting down on a chair, looking over his friend. Rubbing his head and feeling fresh blood seeping from underneath the wrapped bandages, Nat somehow managed to find the energy and the mind to speak.

"Where my rod...?" he glubbed out between tight pulses in his skull.

"Your rod?" John said with a shake of his head. "Your rod is in two big pieces and about a million and a half tiny ones. Along with whatever might be left in your head."

Suddenly, he recalled everything. The moment of impossible disbelief as he relived the very seconds his rod had snapped in slow motion. Watching the rod, in an instant, poof into miniature cloud of smoke, as the immense tension on his line vanished just as quick. Feeling himself thrown backwards, watching the broken end of his line fly towards him, covering his vision, so slow and exact in his memory that he found himself remembering every small detail of the rod. Every crack old and new, every etched in tribal markings he'd never been sober long enough to really look at. All of it stuffed before his eyes for a fraction of a heartbeat, before everything turned black.

His catch lost to the ocean.

His head fell backwards onto the hard floor, barely softened by the cot. A few tiny flecks of blood from his forehead rocketing into the air and landing back on his face like raindrops.

"Damn it."

He passed out.

He dreamed, he thought. He rarely ever dreamed, so whenever he did in fact have a vision in his sleep, it was always hard to remember the next day whether he had dreamed a dream or just had some blurry memories from last night's drinking.

Whatever it was, it started out in total darkness. No sound, no motion, no Nat Pagle. No nothing. Then, far off in the inky black, a shape began moving, twisting and turning and floating and flying. It got closer and closer, shimmering as if it were being looked at through a sheet of water. He realized whatever the shape was, it was almost as black as the darkness surrounding it and found himself confused as to why he could even manage to see it.

He saw it swim, up and down and up and down. It straightened out into a thin, single line. Then, parts of that line fell down or rose up, until it was jagged and totally uneven. He saw himself sitting there, before this strange jagged line, at a camp fire. Looking up at dark mountain tops in the night.

He shook his head, or he thought he did. The shape was back, swimming in water that wasn't there. It was brighter now, a dim whiteness, swimming closer and closer. It was round, with a simple flipper, swimming on its flat side. Nat tried to get closer to it, tried to will his bodyless concious towards the shape. But the shape grew smaller. He forced himself to go faster, but the shape only got smaller and smaller and smaller, sinking backwards into nothingness. He was desperate, and kept following it despite knowing he could never catch up or follow to where it was going. He followed still, willing himself to keep going further, to not stop... a fishing rod, its end cut short in broken shards, flew into his face.

He awoke.

"Mister Nat!" a voice called, his body gently shaking. "Mister Nat, you must come see this!"

Nat's eyes, barely cracked open, slowly peeled back, the dim light of morning burning his soft eyes. He was shaken again. "Mister Nat, I don't mean to wake you, but you have to see this!"

He groaned, and a weary arm probed out, feeling the soft fur of Mr. Fiji. Nat belched and tasted blood mixed with digested alcohol on the back of his tongue, but made his way to a propped elbow to look at the pandaren who had woken him.

Mr. Fiji's face was a strange mixing of emotion. There was a dull hint of reluctant excitement, but that was drowned almost completely out by another emotion. Sadness? Fear? What was it, Nat thought to himself in his spinning, bleeding head. What did Mr. Fiji want him to see so badly?

Somehow Nat got himself to his feet, the old but still thick arm of his pandaren guide and friend propping him up a bit as he staggered in pain out of the lodge. The wharf was almost entirely empty, most of its whole population gathered in a big circle ontop of one of the sand barges that dotted the waters aside the wharf.

"Come, come, quickly!" Mr. Fiji bade in a voice laden with sentiment Nat couldn't quite identify. Nat and the pandaren made there was as quickly as Nat could manage down to the lowest level of the wharf and then down onto the sand barge. Mr. Fiji politely making a path for the wounded man through the throng of onlookers.

Finally, Nat stood before the source of the excitement. At first, his eyes couldn't even register what he was looking at. But like a painting that was being given shape and colors before his eyes, the image constructed itself in the low, early morning light.

Nat felt a trickle of blood slowly run down his forehead.

It was a massive, round fish. Laying motionless in the sand, water lapping around its huge body. It was a strange, lumpy looking fish, but something about it gave off the instant impression that the lumps, strange and knotted together as they were, were infact tangles of hard muscles. Entertwined in almost nonsensical fashion like a mess of raw strength and power. Even dead, as the fish clearly was, it looked as if it could have used it massive bulk to simply ram their wharf into splinters, casting the inhabitants to the ocean to drown or be battered themselves.

It was easily over some thirty feet in width, but for how long it was, there was no true guessing. Only half the body existed lengthwise, the massive body ending in jagged, dull-red meat with a few broken stems of bones poking from the tattered meat here and there. Along the remaining body, long razor-like cuts lined the scaleless flesh, mingled amongst other strange, unidentifiable marks and wounds.

Nat felt himself dropping to his knees, weakly slapping a hand onto the dry surface of the dead monster. Straight from the legends and tales of thousands years past, a turtle fish had finally come into their world. As a torn apart corpse.

Was it the fish he had hooked? Had he doomed his would-be catch to death by shark attack, or something else? Was this what was left of his weeks of fruitless fishing? He puked, and now Mr. Fiji and another pandaren were leaning down to help him stand back up. He caught one last, forlorn look at the tattered fish before his vision began to spin again, and darkness took hold once more.

He woke sometime the next day, the constant throb in his head mercifully gone. He felt weak in the legs and completely hallow in the stomach, but had the strength to easily get himself up and the will to seek out something to fill his empty belly.

The thoughts and memories of the last couple of days simply didn't exist in his mind as he automatically fetched himself a bowl of thick morning porridge and a hard piece of meat. Sitting down, he drank directly from the bowl, mushing the tasteless porridge in his mouth between ripping bites from the meat. There was alcohol, but for once, he didn't quite feel like drinking. Then he spied a jug of beer with a few pieces of fruit floating in it. Fruit was very healthy for you, so Nat decided he really couldn't turn the drink down.

He was sitting alone in the lodge, everyone else already done with breakfast and going about their day. He finished the hunk of meat and most of the porridge before he belched, downed the rest of the fruity cocktail and went out onto the open air balcony to puke some more.

He walked back through the lodge and out the main doors, into the late morning sun. Without even thinking about it, his eyes instantly darted to the sand barge where the dead fish had been the day before. Thankfully, however, there was nothing there. Not even a sign the corpse had broken onto the sand. Only smooth, wet sand slowly washing off into the ocean.

He sighed, and began making his way down the stairs. He looked up and stopped in his tracks. He stomach lurching in pain, he thought he'd throw up again if he'd had anything to throw. There, on one of the far ends of the wharf, hanging from metal hooks supported over a thick wooden beam, were chunks of the turtle fish. He fell onto his bottom, sitting on the stairs. His rod breaking, the dream, seeing the dead fish, everything in his head at once. He shook it as clear as he could and got back up, walking down the stairs. His eyes on the ground ahead of him.

He ran into John first.

"You're looking pretty terrible!" John called with a wave as he cast out his rod.

"Not as terrible as whatever it is over there." Nat said as nonchalantly as he could, pointing over towards the hanging fish meat without looking at it.

John laughed. "Yeah, it was too big to do anything with, so we hacked it up to hang. Some of the pandaren are saying that whatever it was, some kind of 'mantis' killed it or something, so no one is sure what to do with it."

"Mantis?" Nat asked. John shrugged.

"I dunno. Mantis, Manto, Mantie. Something like that."

"Where's Mr. Fiji?" Nat asked, trying to settle his rolling stomach by slowly breathing in the clean air.

"I believe he and our dear companion Haito are on the other side of the wharf, inspecting repairs." John said before cursing as he snagged his line on the coral that sat under the waves.

Nat turned immediately, wandering off to the other side of the wharf, aimlessly looking around for his guide. Quite a few of the fishermen he passed caused him to stop for a few moments for small talk. Recounting how crazy his hook the other day had been and asking him how his head was feeling, it was the same conversation everytime and Nat quickly grew tired of the delays. Eventually, however, he laid eyes on Mr. Fiji and Haito, the two pandaren closely looking down one of the support beams that held the higher levels of the wharf up above the water.

Mr. Fiji noticed Nat before Nat had a chance to call out. His brow, sunk low in concentration, perked up and his eyes shined as he waved at Nat. "Mister Nat!" he called. "Good to see you up!"

Nat gave a solid nod, but was more than a bit taken back when the pandaren wrapped his furry arms around Nat and gave a hug before letting go, smiling and laughing. Haito, if he ever spared any attention, was already back to intently looking over the wharf beams.

Mr. Fiji's expression turned cold and somber, his smile evaporating and his eyes growing stern. "You know what washed up on our wharf the other day."

Nat said nothing, but Haito's attention was then finally turned to the conversation. "It was just a 'turtle fish'." he said. "I've logged whatever information that can be gleaned from it. Dead fish like this wash up on shore all the time."

Mr. Fiji gave a subtle ruffle of his nose as he looked towards Haito, but said nothing as he turned back to Nat. "Do you know what ended the great beast?" he asked, looking deeply at Nat.

Nat, his own brow ruffled, shook his head. "I have no idea. Looks sort of like a shark, I think. John mentioned something about a mantis?"

"_Mantid!_" a voice behind them snapped.

Mr. Fiji and Nat both turned towards one of the wharf guards, his weapon brandished at an invisible enemy. "When I was young, I served as a guard to trading caravans that ran along the wall. Some nights we'd wake, to find some of the cattle and turtles we were moving torn into pieces."

"River saurok, beasts in the forest..." the guard shook his head. "My comrades..." he lowered his weapon, huffing a sigh. "It didn't matter to the mantid that crawled over the wall. To us, we were just things to be hunted and killed on their jaunts across the wall."

Haito bristled slightly. "There's nothing to confirm that any mantid had anything to do-" he was cut off, as the guard snapped.

"I've seen a corpse after a mantid reaver has torn into it!" he shouted. "I've seen the way their spears cut perfect lines through meat, how their jaws leave deep gouges." his arm shot towards the hanging turtle fish, his finger pointing. "Mantid destroyed that creature. I know it."

Haito said nothing, but looked away, busying himself with his inspections. Nat and Mr. Fiji simply stared at one another.

The guard marched off, leaving the three alone. The mood was strangely silent, and Nat finally broke it when he asked to no one in particular, "What is a 'mantid'?"

Haito stopped his inspection with a gruff sigh, shaking his head. Mr. Fiji flicked his tongue from his mouth, licking at his lips in obvious unease. But the old pandaren answered.

"The mantid, Mister Nat, are a race of beings that live behind the wall."

Nat knew that the old pandaren was obviously having trouble telling him anything of detail, and did not pressure his guide to answer further. Instead, he asked, "What's the 'wall'?"

"The wall..." Mr. Fiji began, more willing to talk about the minor change of subject, "was built thousands of years ago, some say by the mogu." Nat had no idea what these "mogu" were, but kept quiet as Mr. Fiji continued.

"It is mighty and impressive, and runs the length of Pandaria from the first tall peaks of _Kun-Lai_ only ending as it reaches the sea, here." he grinned, his mind reliving days where he manged to trek the massive wall.

"What's the wall do, exactly?" Nat asked, curious.

Mr. Fiji's grin slipped off his face as he gave Nat a look. "It keeps _them _out."

Haito, concluding his inspections, brushed past Nat and Mr. Fiji. The pair's gaze falling east, towards the wall and the lands beyond it. "If it truly were the mantid that ended the graceful turtle fish," Mr. Fiji spoke, "then we shall never find out how they did so."

"What if someone were to try?"

Mr. Fiji's brow fell, but he gave a dry grin. "Try what?"

"To find the mantid and ask them how they did it."

Mr. Fiji gave a laugh as dry as the grin had been. "Then that someone would probably die screaming."

Nat tried weasling out anything else he could about the wall or the dark lands said to harbor beyond it, but Mr. Fiji was obviously quite reserved to not discuss it. As Mr. Fiji proved to be a dry well of information, Nat turned to making gossip with the locals. Not much other than general personal opinions was won this way, but as the day ended, the pandaren shuffled along into the lodge for their evening meal. Nat joined them, sitting in the lodge as everyone around him was busy eating.

Resolved to find out more about the mantid one way or another, Nat simply shouted, "It was mantid that killed the big fish!"

Most of the pandaren stopped mid-bite at the outburst. Silence followed for a few short seconds before, sure enough, conversation started. The lodge was a buzz with pandaren suddenly finding themselves, through quick passing comment at Nat's shouting, locked into debate over the fate of the fish hanging outside their wharf.

"The mantid don't fish!" one pandaren finally shouted above the others.

"Like you'd know?!" another shot back.

"The rumors are true! The mantid are swarming early! They look to the waters to feed their swarm!"

"It wasn't mantid that killed that fish, everyone shut up!"

"The fish was full of mantid bites!"

"If you think you know everything so well, get on a boat yourself and swim past the wall! The mantid can explain everything to you, like you seem to claim they do!"

Nat's ears picked up at that. It was exactly what he was looking for. So, you could enter the 'mantid lands' by boat, simply going around the end of the wall...

"I wouldn't set foot in the _Dread Wastes_ for all the brew in... all of Pandaria!"

"You couldn't set foot there, you'd be mantid meat by the time you got to the wall!"

There it was. "Dread Wastes". Very omnious and scary. That was what he was looking for. He got up from the table, leaving his untouched food behind. He had no idea if these 'mantid' things truly had anything to do with his turtle fish, but if they did, he was going to find out. Even if it killed him.

On the upper floor of the lodge there was a large, colorful map of the Pandaria continent carved directly into the wall of the sleeping room. Nat had never really paid it any attention, or had truly ever been up onto the upper floor. But now that alone, the rest of the fishermen either eating dinner or still yet out on the wharf, he studied the map.

He recognized borders that seperated major land areas, and the names that labeled each of those areas.

"_Forest of neverending Jade_"

He shuddered as he recalled his time in the forest.

"_Valley where Four Winds meet_"

His eyes traveled south.

"_The low wildlands of Krasarang_"

Then, east.

There was a deep groove in the wall, with the name,

"_Spine of the great stone serpent_"

carved here and there along it. That was this 'wall' he decided. Which meant...

But the map just ended there. Well, that wasn't exactly true. The map itself ended, no more carvings of rough geology or hill ranges or lakes laid in the wall past the gouge that represented the wall. All that existed on the eastern side of the map were two words.

"_The Mantid_"

Night fell, and the wharf went to sleep. But not Nat.

He was out in his usual sleeping spot now, the boat he'd been bunking down in during his stay at the wharf. Secretly, he'd moved most of his belongings out of it and turned it from makeshift bed back into water-ready rig. He was pretending to sleep, and finding that passing hours while forcing himself to remain largely motionless was quite a difficult task. When he could stand it absolutely no longer and was mostly confident everyone else had to have been to sleep, he listened for John's signature snoring.

He heard it, but gave a few quiet calls of "_John! John!_" just to make sure. Hearing nothing but a steady snore in response, Nat rolled onto his belly. He cut the rope securing the boat to the dock and, to remain as silent and unseeable as possible, used his hands to row the boat out to the water, remaining low on his belly as he went.

He passed under the raised wharf docks, slipping in the dark night shadows, barely making a noise over the usual ocean sounds. Everyone was alseep and the wharf was silent, save for the wind causing the hanging hooks to sway, creaking and creaking, their contents still out in the open sea air. Nat slowly glided his boat along the sand barges, pushing his hands along the wet sand of the shallow sea bed, hoping he wouldn't get his boat stuck, or worse, grind it with noise on the sand below. He made it through okay, however, and sighed with relief as he cleared the largest of the sand barges.

Then, he hit something.

With a soft '_oof_!' Nat was tossed forward in the boat, nearly smashing his face into the inside of the boat's bow. A wet hand slapped from the water to grab into the boat's side. For a moment, Nat was actually suddenly stunned with fear. What terrible monster in the night had he run into?

The head of a fish, gasping for breath, invaded the side of his boat. Nat was actually going to shout, before he realized it was just the local jinyu. Its face as expressionless as ever, Nat couldn't tell if the strange creature was upset or angry at being run into.

"You go where even the water fears to flow, Nat Pagle." was all it said. It slipped into the water and Nat felt a push on his boat, propelling him forward. Behind him, the faint words of the jinyu, "Good luck, fisherman from beyond Pandaria."

Nat wasn't sure if the push forward was an act of kindness or a form of revenge ment to hurry him along to his death, but he resteeled himself and swam on, hands moving him forward as he lay on his belly. After awhile, when he felt he was far enough away from the wharf and his arms were tired of being bent uncomfortably over the lip of the boat. He carefully sat up, preparing to row the rest of the way.

He was unhappy to find that, for all his efforts to row with his hands in stealth, he had only made it a few hundred feet away from the wharf. But it was far enough, he decided, and that was what mattered. Now, he only had to row eastward until he ran into a certain wall.

It was hours of rowing, and his mind wandered before just going blank and automatic, his thoughts simply teetering out as his body focused on the monotony of rowing. After exhausting hours of the tedious exhertion, his stupor was interupted when his boat suddenly hit something large and solid.

At first he thought he must have come upon one of the big sea boulders sticking out from the water, but as he turned around, he saw that it was no boulder. It was rock and extended for what seemed like miles into the sky, and then from there ran all the way down the ocean, onto the land, and kept going until he could see no further. He knew it went on for far further than that. He had finally found his wall.

Now, he turned his boat to start moving away from shore and along the wall. It wasn't an easy task, the water around the wall kept wanting to swash up against it, and he eventually had to row back out several yards away to stop himself from having to fight against the water to smash up against the side of the giant wall. The wall just in sight in the dark night, he rowed onwards, until the thick blackness of the wall gaveway to a horizon of gently shining water. He was at the end of the wall.

Now, he repositioned his boat and made his way just a bit further to the east, clearing the much, much shorter side-end of the wall. From so far out at sea in the darkness, he could barely make out the coastline at all, but even through distance and night he could tell it was a completely different, completely... _rougher _land.

Almost feeling second thoughts on the excursion, Nat sat for a few moments in his boat, moving only by the rocking waves of the ocean beneath his boat. Then he remembered the massive chunks of dry meat hanging back at the wharf, and how he had failed to capture the creature they came from. He snorted, and picked his oars up. It was time to make shore.

Soon enough, he was barged into the sand. As silently as he could, he crept from his boat. If the land elsewhere in Pandaria seemed alive with strange, warm aura, this land seemed completely barren and without any feeling at all. Well, there was a feeling, actually. It was a feeling of a land that was empty, but not unoccupied. As he took his first steps onto the rocky beach and up onto the short, pale tawny grass, he breathed in air that was thick and forboding in his nose. He had yet to be in the land for more than a few minutes and already the name "_Dread Wastes_" seemed hauntingly appropriate. He had come far too far, however, to even consider turning back now. He moved on, totally unsure of what he was looking for, but knowing he had to find it.

He wasn't even sure what the 'mantid' were, or if he could somehow communicate with them if he ever found them. He recalled Mr. Fiji's words that he would, as the old pandaren guide had put it, '_die screaming_' if he ever attempted to ask the mantid anything. Nat decided that, if possible, he could scope out the land and possibly spy upon any mantid. Maybe by simply observing them from afar he could glean their methods of bringing in, and then brutally butchering, legends of the sea.

He began walking, quickly taking to some sparsely wooded areas along the coast. The trees were thin and looked rather sickly and weak but provided enough cover to make him feel at least a little bit safer in this horrible new land. The shimmering waters of the coast not far from him. He made his way up the coast for some time, before, against all odds, he began to tire. He cursed at himself for feeling so fatiqued and fought against it. But within time, his legs grew weary and his eyes heavy, his body worn down from the hours-long trek of rowing himself to this wasteland he'd probably die in. The moon was beginning to crest in the sky, and the twilight of dawn would soon be upon the land.

The land was also beginning to rise, rolling higher and higher above the shore, first in a large hill and eventually into high, rocky cliff. Exhausted, hungry and far too sober to be dealing with all of this, Nat stumbled his way to a large tree. Its bark was thick, smooth and incredibly hard and it sat on cold, wind-swept ground. The grass below it was even thinner and drier than the rest of the life-choked lawn around it. He shouldered into a hollow between the tree's roots, where he felt he'd be at least partially out of sight. Nestled in the smelly, slightly damp soil, Nat somehow managed to quickly find sleep in this desolate, terrible land he so foolishly ventured off to.

Nat was awoken by the rumbles of an explosion. Snapping his eyes open and alert, his heart painfully still in his chest. He was afraid to even breath, the severity and stupidity of his journey beyond the wall and into the wastes suddenly weighing down on him all at once, attempting to crush his body into the pallid soils. For a few moments he wondered if he had walked into the middle of some sort of mass-military bombing. Had the Alliance or the Horde deemed the lands of the mantid horrid enough to warrent bombing? Or had faction installments already taken this land as well? Was he in the middle of a warzone?

Because he had no other options, Nat peered out of his wet hollow, looking over one of the boulder-like roots of the tree. Around him, he saw nothing. The hill was empty, nothing to see but dying grass and strange, sick looking clouds that seemed to ooze down from the sky, as if even clouds weren't natural or friendly in this place. Another explosion, this time Nat caught the sounds of water and earth splashing up into the air and then back down onto the earth and sea. What had he gotten himself into?

He stayed in his hollow, wrapped in at least the guise of saftey. Every thirty or so seconds, an explosion rattled its way up the cliff and into his muddy hiding place. He looked across the skies, but saw no planes. He strained his ears, but heard nothing else between the explosions.

Perhaps that's what really put him on nerve; the nothingness that filled the spaces in between the explosions. There were absolutely no sounds of soldiers clashing or shouting. No sounds of wildlife moving or running from the blasts. There barely seemed to be sound in the tree tops, swaying their dry leaves and brittle branches in the chill wind. Nat considered going back, but had no way of telling if that was an option any longer. Besides, whatever was happening was happening down below, on the coast. If there was going to be any chance of escape, he'd have to wait for whatever was going on to be done and gone. Hopefully it wouldn't be long.

Forget sounds, he came to realize. There barely seemed to be any signs of life _period _in the land. No birds in the trees or overhead, no tracks or droppings of any beasts. Nothing. Just small intervals of near absolute silence before raging explosions. Deciding that if he was going to die here, he may as well at least come what he came to do (that was, to investigate), Nat summoned up his courage and crept slowly from his hovel.

He advanced unwavering with each explosion, determined to peer over the crumbling cliff top. He kept low to the ground and crawled his way over to the bluff. He made his way to a large rock, stuck in the earth that overlooked the land below at the very top of the cliff. Clinging beside it, he propped himself up onto a knee and looked down to the shore below.

He clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent shouting a curse as he saw a score and a half of monsterous, insect-like humanoids standing on the sands. They were moving down the sands, and were almost directly below Nat's vantage point. He could tell by the distruptions in the sands behind their trail that they had stopped every so often, a large tangle of rope nets filled with colorful fish left behind at each interval.

They stopped once more, turning towards the ocean. One of the monsters tossed a small, amber-colored orb into the water. Nat watched in silence, bracing himself against the rock. Only seconds later, another explosion tore from the water, sending huge waves and chunks of rock and dirt and sand flying into the air. Some of the debris struck the monsters, but even the largest and most solid of the pieces bounced off of them, the monsters unwavering and indeed, almost without any notice of all at the bombardment.

As the explosion ended, dozens of fish slowly floated up, dead on the surface of the water. Nat leaned in ever so slightly closer to try and get a better look. That's when he saw that some of the monsters could _fly_. Several of the air-borne monsters, the _mantid_, Nat knew they had to be, swooped in like locusts. Flying over the water, they dropped a large net, covering the dead fish. The landlocked mantid waded into the water, pulling the net onto land. The net was actually folded up, the second half having already been in the water, and the mantid pulled all the dead fish up all at once onto land. They left it there, in the sand, and moved onto their next destination.

The mantid were _fishing. _Or, rather, they were using explosives to drum up as much fish as possible. Nat smirked. An old favorite.

Off they went, a short ways down the beach. They stopped like soldiers, and Nat noticed that one of the mantid was giving signals. A commander or leader of some sort, then. Another mantid tossed one of the amber bombs into the water, and sure enough, an explosion immediately followed. Fish bobbed up to the surface again, but there were less than last time. The net was dropped overtop of the dead fish before being retrieved and set on the beach. Had the mantid simply managed to blow the turtle fish up? Had one of these bombs just caught the giant?

He certainly didn't think that was the whole story. The corpse was torn in half, and it had what others described as bite marks covering its body, as well as cuts from weapons. Perhaps the mantid had been trying to cut it into smaller pieces to carry when the carcass floated off to sea?

At any rate, he'd seen enough for now. Maybe he'd travel further in land later and try his luck at finding out if the mantid excercised any other methods of gathering from the sea, but he'd have no luck at that if he got himself caught. Best to retreat away and not risk getting spotted.

He turned around, ready to head back to his dirty hollow and plan his next move. He stopped mid-turn.

Nat stared up at the tall, chiten-covered creature that stood before him. Its large, oddly shaped head housed inside of a large, oddly shaped helmet of dull metal. Its body was hard and sharp, its eyes were dead and piercing. One of the sharp, sharp talons of its insectoid foot tapped the ground in what Nat thought might have looked like annoyance.

Thin, translucent wings buzzed. The yellow-tinged membranes folded down to the mantid's back. A mouth that was too horrifying to describe snapped close behind terrible mandibles. The mantid made a strange, groggling cooing sound as it cocked its head at Nat. To his surprise and shock, the mantid spoke in language Nat understood.

It was a strange, gargled speech littered with snaps and clicks of the mantid's almost quivering mandible. The mantid's atenna flicked every which way as it spoke, as if by their own volition.

"What is this? You're not a saurok. How did you get here?" the mantid said, chattering its mandible open and shut.

"I'm Nat Pagle. A fisherman from Azeroth." Nat found himself saying. If he was going to die ripped apart by creatures like this, he was going to do it with at least a little dignity.

The mantid clacked its jaws and cocked its head the opposite direction. "Does it _fear _death?"

Nat wasn't entirely sure how to answer the question, and as he stood in silence, the mantid snapped like a lightening bolt and in an instant was holding a long, hook-bladed polearm of strange orange... some sort of material; directly at Nat's throat.

"Did the pandaren send you here? To die?" it said, slowly stepping towards Nat, forcing the man to slowly take his own steps backwards to avoid the sharp blade, being lead closer and closer to the cliff. "Did the pandaren do it as a joke?"

"It's a pretty funny joke, I guess." the mantid said. Nat noticed there were four other mantid along with the one currently about to kill him. They were less armored and generally didn't seem as commanding a presence. Was this mantid some kind of leader, like the one from the beach?

"The pandaren didn't send me, I came with the Alliance." Nat suddenly lied. He had no idea what prompted such a lie, but it actually made the mantid stop.

"Alliance..." the mantid spoke slowly, as if rolling the word around its disgusting mouth. It redoubled the blade to Nat's throat, forcing him further back. "The 'Alliance' is just more food for the swarm!" it reared its blade back, preparing to swing it forward and cut Nat to ribbons. "_Die_!"

A strange, hardly audible sound whistled through the air. The mantid stopped, as if frozen, his swing only inches from Nat. The mantid was a statue, unmoving, no sounds. Then, it stepped back. Seeming to have completely forgotten and lost interest in Nat, it walked off to rejoin the others, standing still.

Nat wasn't quite sure what was happening, but he had a pretty good feeling that the mantid that nearly killed him was not, in fact, a defacto leader. The sound of buzzing wings droned above head, and Nat watched as a new mantid landed on the ground beside them. This one was larger, slightly taller and had a darker chiten skin. It was covered from head to... _toe, _in thick, ornate armor. When it spoke, it spoke in a deep voice that dripped with power and authority. A leader.

"What is going on here." it commanded.

Nat stood, wondering how far he could make it if he just started to run, when he realized that, with none of the other mantid answering; the question was for _him_.

"Answer, soft creature." the mantid bade.

Nat swallowed. "I am Nat Pagle. A fisherman... for the Alliance."

"Fisherman?" the mantid asked.

"That's right."

"For the 'Alliance'?"

"Yes."

"Die."

The mantid sprung on Nat, grabbing him by the shoulder and throwing him to the ground. It raised a long, barbed spear made of the same orange the other mantid used. It raised it up, and prepared to bring it down.

"You're doing it all wrong!" Nat shouted, not even quite sure what he was talking about.

His arms were folded over his head, and he was curled into a ball, bracing to have his stomach ripped open, when he looked up and saw the mantid had stopped itself in mid-thrust.

It did what Nat believed to be a growl. "Doing _what_ wrong?"

Nat, his voice only a little shakey, pointed a finger that was only slightly quivering over the cliff.

"Your... fishing techniques." Nat said.

"What about them?" the mantid asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

Nat slowly stood up, keeping his eyes on the spear at all times. "Well..." he began. "You're using bombs for mass-gross fishing, it's a good way, but you'll never sustain the population of fish if you blow them all up at once."

The mantid was actually silent, listening. Nat pressed on, turning from the spear, a little more comfortable now that his mind was on fishing.

He pointed down at the shoreline, the mantid was beside him, looking down as well. "You see, you're bombing every single strip along the shore. Do that long enough, and you won't get anymore fish. But, if you simply used the fish you already have, you could chum the waters and attract _real _fish."

The mantid was invested in Nat's words, and it hadn't killed him. Yet. Nat kept talking.

"The waters here are teeming with shark and other large fish scavangers. Have some of your... reavers chop some of the small fish into pieces, fly them out a ways into the water, and kill the large fish as they come."

Nat surprised a yelp of surprise as he was suddenly lifted by the back of the neck, and up off the ground. Flying from the top of the cliff to the beach, the mantid all but threw Nat to the sand.

"Tell them how this works." it commanded, pointing at the mantid on the beach who, if Nat was correct, seemed a bit confused and surprised.

Nat stood up, brushing the sand from him. He looked at the mantid, but didn't hesitate. He explained the same process and then looked back at the commanding mantid. The mantid snapped its jaws. "Do what it described."

The mantid looked at each other, unsure of just what was going on. The lead mantid snapped.

"_NOW!_"

That got them going. Soon, they had butchered the fish in the nets, the battered bodies bleeding heavily on the sand as those mantid that could fly scooped them up and flew out, dropping them into the water. Nat wasn't sure if this was going to work, any other fish for miles would have been scared away by the explosions. In fact, the only reason the mantid's method was working was most likely because the fish at shore were literally being shocked into paralysis from the bombs going off so close to them. He didn't think it would end fairly for himself if his method didn't bear results.

But, sure enough, the beasts of the deep overcame their fears in their desperation for an easy meal. Several large sharks were finning around the chummed waters, and within only seconds they were cut down, right out of the water. Their lifeless bodies quickly hauled to shore.

The lead mantid looked down at the prizes, and then turned back to Nat.

"You were... correct. Our method was... lacking."

Nat nodded his head. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "Now you can put that to good use while I take my leave!"

The mantid from the cliff suddenly leaped down, landing in the sand around Nat.

"You go nowhere!" the mantid from before clacked out. "It is time for you to give your due to the swarm, in _flesh_!"

This time, the lead mantid actually leapt onto the subordinate and shoved it down into the sand, stopping it from attacking Nat.

"No." the lead mantid spoke. "The swarm is already suffering enough without riling the ire of this 'Alliance' that has come to the shores of Pandaria. If this Nat Pagle has instilled us with useful information for the swarm, then endagering our queen's broods is pointless. Let Nat Pagle leave."

Nat couldn't even believe what he was hearing. Was this mantid giving him actual clearance to _leave and not get killed_?

Nat wasted absolutely no more time or words, he turned and immediately began walking down the beach- until he stopped. Why did he stop? Why was he turning around? What could he possibly have to do that would prevent himself from not getting out as fast as he could.

"Excuse me." he said against his own will.

The lead mantid snapped its oblong head towards Nat. "What?!" it demanded.

"The real reason I came here was because... a few days ago, a large, half-eaten fish washed up on the shores beyond the wall. I was told you mantid killed it."

The mantid looked at Nat as if they couldn't believe what he was doing. To be fair, Nat had no idea, either.

"Do you know anything about it?"

Nat watched the lead mantid stand up, taking a few steps toward him. Looks like he blew his chance at mercy.

"A large fish got beached in the sand, I don't know where it came from. We killed it and began cutting it into pieces, but mantid under my command somehow let it slip away into the water and float off." the mantid clacked the claws of one of its feet into the sand. "They are dead now."

"I see. Alright." Nat said, turning to leave before it was too late.

"You are a... good fisherman." the mantid spoke.

"Some even say I'm the best." Nat snarked, praying each step wasn't going to be his last.

"_I will be watching you._"

As soon as Nat was a few hundred yards away from the mantid, he heard another explosion far behind him and simply began running. As fast as he could he ran, all down the beach, until his small boat came into view. He practically tripped into it while shoving it off the sand and nearly lost an oar overboard, but he was soon oaring with all his might and strength, almost certain that some air-bound mantid were hovering over him, ready to cut him up and feed the 'swarm'.

He didn't stop until he was far clear of the otherside of the wall, his arms aching. He sunk back in the boat, gasping in air. He had risked his life to learn absolutely nothing and just taught an enemy that seemed bent on destroying Pandaria how to better feed its army.

This 'turtle fish' would be the death of him.

Nat slowly rowed himself back to the wharf, escaping death reinvigorating him with new energy. He pondered to himself the entire way back, whether or not the turtle fish that had washed up on the shores of the mantid wastes was the very same fish he had hooked the days before.

He needed a drink.

The sun grew higher in the sky as the wharf began to take shape not too far out on the horizon. With any luck, Nat would manage to think of a lie to cover up where he had slipped off to in the night.

As he rowed closer and closer to the wharf, small black blotches turned into fisherman. One of them noticed Nat's approach and threw up an arm, calling out to him, but Nat was too far away to hear whatever it was. Finally, he was only a few hundred feet from the wharf and eventually bumped right into it. A few fishermen were gathered around, realizing Nat was exhausted.

Hauling him from the boat they laid him out on the warm wooden dock, the sun glaring directly into his weary eyes. "Where's Mr. Fiji?" Nat croaked.

"Up in the lodge... I think." one of the pandaren answered, looking up towards the wharf lodge.

Nat forced himself to his feet, thanked the pandaren for helping him out of his boat, and trudged off, his legs locked and tight. He kept an eye out for John, but the only presence he could find of his friend were the four large sharks hooked up to dry, the one who caught them no where in sight.

Nat made it to the lodge to find Mr. Fiji and Haito sitting down at one of the tables, a large sheet of paper between them. Mr. Fiji was sitting quietly as Haito was carefully scrawling something down with a piece of black charcoal.

Neither noticed Nat until he was standing directly beside their table.

Haito was the first to look up, giving Nat a simple nod, which Nat found a bit too friendly for the untrusting pandaren, before looking back down at his work. Mr. Fiji looked up and gave Nat a quick smile, before motioning for him to look down upon the large paper Haito was working at.

Haito, with a roll of his eyes and a sigh, sat back so Nat could look over the paper. It was the turtle fish record, but this time the drawing was slightly more detailed from its original simple round shape. That wasn't all, there was a fresh new entry to the submitted data;

"_Nat Pagle, fisherman from beyond Pandaria, almost caught a turtle fish on rod. The beast nearly pulled the entire Wharf into the water before the rod and line snapped._"

Nat read it the entry twice, before asking, "How do you know it was a turtle fish?"

Mr. Fiji was about to open his mouth to give some kind of answer, but Haito shot him a look. Mr. Fiji pursed his chubby pandaren lips and stayed silent.

"How were the Dread Wastes?" Haito asked, blowing his fingers clean of charcoal dust before standing up to look over his edits.

Nat raised a brow. "How did you know?"

Haito sighed as he picked the paper up and walked off to file it back away with the others. "Because, Nat Pagle. I am a fisherman, too."

Nat and Mr. Fiji left the lodge and walked out into the day. Mr. Fiji was wearing the strangest knowing smiles, but Nat didn't inquire further. The pandaren was almost always smiling.

The turtle fish was no longer hanging from the wharf, the huge pieces of meat now cut down and packaged into crates and boxes, covered in seasoned sea salts and ready for shipping back to the main land.

The man and the pandaren came across John, who was trying to unhook an eel-like creature from his line, but everytime John got his hands close, the fish spasmed and flopped wildly while puffing rows of sharp spikes from its flat sides.

"Oh!" Mr. Fiji exclaimed. "You've hooked a 'Pretty woman' fish!"

"Pretty woman...?" John said, looking up at Mr. Fiji, the fish flopping about and occasionally shooting out its spikes.

"Yes, yes!" Mr. Fiji said, laughing. He picked up a solid stick that was laying on the dock.

"Because, like a pretty woman that suddenly shows interest in you, there is always a knife- or two!- waiting in concealment." He laughed again. "It was named in darker times, when the sultry female assassin was the 'in' thing."

"Interesting." Nat dryly quipped.

"There's a very careful way you have to deal with these, Mr. John. Their spikes are covered in deadly toxins, so you have to negotiate with them quite gingerly..."

Mr. Fiji suddenly whalloped the fish over its flat head with the stick, killing it instantly.

"There we go!" he said, picking the limp body up from the docks. "Diplomancy is a wonderful policy, but I still always preferred keeping a big stick with me."

Nat began fishing, or at least he began mindlessly flicking his line out into the water. It was always a strange thing to realize, no matter how many times you had to come to terms with it before. The realization that you had no real power over the fish. You caught them or you didn't. He sipped on a mug of beer. Most of the time, you didn't. You just kept sitting around, getting drunk until your investment of time and liver health eventually paid off into _something_.

Mr. Fiji walked up beside him, the pandaren's arms folded behind his back.

"So, Mister Nat." he said. "Surely now you must know why you came here."

Nat flicked a glance at the old pandaren. "I came for a job." he said.

Mr. Fiji said nothing for a few moments, then he suddenly thrust a long smooth stick into Nat's chest.

Nat looked down and took the stick in one hand. Mr. Fiji let go of his end and chuckled. "Sometimes, the largest prizes can be achieved through the most simple of mediums."

"What?" Nat asked, not drunk enough for any of the pandaren's proverbs to make sense. Looking at the stick, he recognized it was a weathered old length of bamboo, one of the native woods in Pandaria. More curious, however, was the fact that there was a long thread of fishing line attached to it.

"Do you think you can catch a turtle fish, Mister Nat?" Mr. Fiji looked at Nat, his smiling growing wider. "I can."

Clapping a hand on Nat's shoulder, he added, "And I'm not the only one."

Nat looked down at the bamboo rod. On the end opposite of the side the line was tied to, he read a name, carved into the soft bamboo. Simple and short.

"_Haito_"

Nat looked up Mr. Fiji, but the old guide was already walking away, his soft feet striding down the dock. Nat looked back down at the precarious bamboo rod and the name that was set into it.

Later that day, Nat and John sat off the side of the wharf, casting their lines into the water. Mr. Fiji stode back down the docks, whistling to himself.

"Mister Nat!" he called, an arm held to the air in greeting. "You are..." he stopped, his hand falling down to his chin. "Not using the rod I gave you."

"Oh." Nat said, drinking from his mug. "Yeah, I had absolutely no idea how to use it. You just sort of walked off after giving it to me."

"Ahem." Mr. Fiji coughed, a bit embarassed. "Right."

"Ah, well, it's simple!" Mr. Fiji said, picking up the bamboo rod that was left leaning against a wharf beam. "You see, all the line is kept in a ball down here," Mr. Fiji poked a finger at the tight ball of line that was tied to the end of the rod. "You just untie it..." he flicked a clawed finger into the ball, cutting the knot that held it.

"Then, you just flick it out to sea!" he gave the rod a quick jerk of his wrist and even with no bait to give it weight, the line flew far out into the water. "Reeling your line in is easy, just go like this!" he folded the rod up to the line, pulling the line back. Then, he spun the rod around in the air, wrapping the line around it. The longer he spun, the more line that was wrapped around the bamboo, until eventually the line was brought all the way in, a small fish actually caught on the unbaited hook.

Mr. Fiji laughed as he plucked the tiny fry off the hook and tossed it back into the water. He glanced over to Nat, who wasn't paying attention.

With a growl, Mr. Fiji cracked Nat over the head with the bamboo.

"Ow! Hey!" Nat protested, shielding his head with an arm.

"Pay attention!" Mr. Fiji snapped. "If you want to catch a turtle fish, pay attention!"

Nat sighed. Try to as he might, he couldn't _not _want to catch the legendary creature.

Mr. Fiji repeated the same process. Nat shook his head. "A rod like this could never possibly bring in something the size of a fish like that."

Mr. Fiji chuckled. "No?" he brandished the rod above his head and pulled on it, bending the bamboo almost in two. Bended as it was, the bamboo never once gave any sign or warning of breaking, much less of even being strained.

"You are not the first in so many years to have attempted to catch a turtle fish, Mister Nat." Mr. Fiji said, handing the rod back to Nat.

"So then what do I do?" Nat asked, looking down at the rod with a hint of new reverence.

"Bait it. Cast it out. Wait." Mr. Fiji said. Then with a thought, he added, "Oh, yes. And find a nice, big tree to tie yourself to..."

Mr. Fiji walked off again, and John, silent for the whole ordeal, asked, "What was that all about?"

Nat was still looking over the simple bamboo rod, taking in all of its aged features. He looked towards John. "I'm going to catch a big fish."

Nat himself walked off, to scope out a good fishing spot. He heard John call out, "But you already do that!"

Nat chose a position higher on the docks and gave a few practice casts. It was actually far harder than it seemed and he failed every single time. As he was slowly and awkwardly reeling in his latest failure, he heard a cough behind him.

"Well, it's harder than it looks, Mr. Fiji!" Nat said as he turned around. But it was not Mr. Fiji that stood behind him. Haito, peering down at him, was examining his technique.

"You're doing it wrong." he said.

Haito walked over, retrieving his old rod from Nat. Carefully winding it up, he cast it even farther than Mr. Fiji managed to. "This is not like one of your new fashioned gear, Nat Pagle. It requires an order of tact and skill to wield, but in return, will be the only rod you ever need in your life."

Haito spoke in nostalgic wonder, looking at his rod. "I have decided to _loan_ it to you, Nat Pagle. My old body is too weak and tired anymore for fishing like this."

He snapped the rod back to Nat. "But your body is still young enough. You can still finish what I couldn't." he glanced at Nat from under a raised brow. "And I refuse to sit by and watch you fail over and over, squandering your chance."

Nat gave the pandaren a two-fingered salute. "You're too kind."

Haito gave a roll of his eyes and a huff.

To his credit, however, Haito actually did stay and help Nat learn the strange, primitive method of fishing with bamboo. Nat wasn't sure he'd ever get the real hang of it, but after a few dozen embarassing test tries, he finally managed to make the line whizz out of the hollow bamboo, a sharp '_ziiip_' trailing out along with it as it glided through the air to land some ways away in the water.

Haito gave a satsifactory nod. "Keep practicing." he said, walking off. "And don't break that rod!"

Nat rejoined John, the two casting their lines out into the water. "What's with that stick, Nat?" John asked between sips of beer.

"Dunno." Nat shrugged. "Haito insists I use it. Personally I don't see how it could possibly be any better than a real rod, but-" he was cut off at a sudden tug on his line.

Looking quickly down, Nat tried to remember just how you worked the rod to wrap the line around it. The tug was getting stronger and stronger, and Nat wasn't even sure how he was supposed to set the hook. Finally, Nat managed to wrench the rod up to the line and began working it back and forth, wrapping line around it with each turn. The bamboo groaned softly in his fists but gave no other signs to being under any serious strain. He continued his awkward manner of reeling in the line until from out of the deep, dark blue ocean a huge shape was pulled in.

"How in the..." John said as the faint shape took form, pulled closer and closer to the docks as Nat reeled the bamboo rod in further and further.

It was a giant marlin, the fish fighting and sloshing as it broke into shallow water, but the bamboo simply held firm, barely even a faint vibration running up it with each mighty jerk by the hooked fish.

The fish was pulled in and with the help of some of the pandaren fishermen, hauled off to be prepared for transfer to the main land. Nat stood, watching the massive fish as it was anchored up onto one of the sand barges to be laid out flat. He felt his hand, clenched tight around the simple bamboo rod.

From the highest docks, up at the lodge, Haito looked down at Nat's catch and smiled to himself.

There was a small party again that night, but the guest of honor, for the first time in his life, was not attending. Nat sat up in the lodge, the sounds of drinking and a night everyone wouldn't remember to regret muffled through the thick lodge doors that were drawn tightly shut.

At a table he sait, Mr. Fiji to one side and Haito to the other.

"You can't possibly fish for one off the wharf, we all know what happened _last _time." Haito said, tapping a floorboard with his soft foot that had been snapped in half and was now bolted back together, the long crack still running visibly between the two pieces of once solid wood.

On the table, Haito had drawn a very rough map of the wharf and the surrounding shoreline. "Mr. Fiji wasn't in jest, Nat Pagle, when he told you to tie yourself to a very large tree."

Nat was looking at the almost detailess map. It was one bumpy line comprising the shore, a small circle out infront of the line to represent the wharf and a thick line directly upon the uneven shore that marked the location of a tree. A very large tree.

"Another thing." Haito said, bending down in the darkness of the unlit lodge. He came back up, slamming a heavy sealed pot on the table. "You'll need bait. _Proper _bait."

Mr. Fiji huffed and plugged his broad nose. "Not in here!" he protested.

Haito spun off the cork at the top of the pot and a terrible, pugnant odor intoxicated the room. It smelled like some kind of cross between rotting meat, stagnant water and hot urine.

"I've been fermenting some of these since before you'd even picked up your first rod, Nat Pagle." Haito bragged, smirking as Nat ruffled his nose in an attempt to seem unaffected by the disgusting smell.

"The hell is it?" Nat grunted out as best he could.

Haito leaned in, his smile widening in the darkness. "It's going to catch us a turle fish."

The next day Haito and Nat went alone, in a single boat, to row down the coastline aways. Haito insisted he knew the tree would still be there, and after just a short while, with the wharf still clearly in sight at the end of the horizon; there was a lone jungle tree, sitting by itself some ways away from steaming wilds.

"Ah!" Haito said, actually rubbing his hands together as they approached the tree in their boat. They hit sand and Haito jumped out, agility still with him in his older age.

"We'll catch a turtle fish. Even if it kills you." Haito said, running a finger underneath his chin as he smiled, eyeing the weathered old tree.

Nat, climbing up the large, rough roots that snaked down into the warm sands, the hard tentacles reaching deep into the earth to hit the black soil that was buried under the coastline. Once he was upon the tree, Haito handed him the end of a thick, long length of rope. Working the rope around the tree, Haito secured Nat to it, revolution by revolution. Soon, Nat was tied to the tree.

Tied under the arms, Nat could still brandish his rod, but Haito was the one who carefully applied a strip of sickly green, pugnant-ooze dripping bait to the hook. Even in the open air it was hard to bear.

Strips of bamboo, though they would never be recognizable as such ever again. Cut and shaped decades ago by the old fisherman, and then fermented in a cocktail that kept them both from deteriorating and allowed the soft, spongey wood to slowly absorb and reabsorb the churning, snot-like bath it was locked in for half a lifetime.

"Is this even going to work? What if it attracts things other than a turtle fish?" Nat questioned the night before.

Haito had laughed. "Anything that tries swallowing this that _isn't _a turtle fish isn't even going to have teeth left."

Now, Nat watched the bait sway and bob in the air as Haito lifted it by the line, suspending it from the ground. Nat was working the line in as quick as he could, more than eager to cast out the vile bait and be rid of it. Once he had the line wrapped and ready to cast, Hait gave him a nod and let go of the line, letting the bait hang out, suspended by Nat's hold on the rod.

Nat gulped. He'd ducked from raptors, ran from trolls, outswam sharks and talked himself away from death by mantid. This was the most scared he'd ever been in his life.

He carefully, slowly, each move calculated five times before he made it. His eyes always on the dangling, swaying bait. Cast it out and don't get a drop of that stuff on you, he kept thinking. Haito grumbled at Nat's lack of haste. Nat sighed as best he could with his chest restrained by the tight ropes, and like a leap of faith, flicked his line out into the rolling ocean.

He actually laughed with relief and wiped his forehead with the back of a hand as he made a perfect, and most importantly a clean, cast. Now, it was time to wait. He got as comfortable as he could, tied to the tree. The rope was severly chaffing him under his armpits, and his back was already complaining. It would be a very, very long wait.

Uncomfortable minutes transformed and grew into unbearable hours, but at least as the day went on, the sun reached high enough into the sky that it no longer bore at him, baking him in its unrelenting heat. Now, he was protected by the dry canopy of the tree, its leaves shaking gently in the salty breeze. At his side, sitting in the sand, was Haito.

Neither had said a single word to one another since Nat began fishing hours ago. Nat was concentrated on fishing, or at least holding his rod as he let his bait float around in the water. Under normal circumstances, he would have reeled in many times, switched baits and changed locations. He also would have been getting increasingly drunk. But this was no ordinary circumstance, and there was no drunkeness to stave off the creeping, choking wait.

He was tied, tightly, to a tree. He had no way of knowing when or if he'd ever get a bite, much less a catch. He was hot, tired, sorer by the moment and thirsty. But he was not stopping.

"How do we even know the bait is still on the hook?" Nat finally asked, his lips and mouth dry and stale in the air.

"It is still there." Haito said, his voice solid and with complete conviction.

"If you say so." Nat replied, trying to reposition himself in his bonds the best he could.

Dusk began to fall, and Nat had had absolutely no luck. From out of the fat orange glow of dusk, a boat slipped towards them from over the water.

"Mister Nat!" its occupant shouted. "You are still tied to the tree?"

Mr. Fiji made land and got out of the boat, a large basket in his arms. "It's dark, he can't stay in the tree all night!"

Haito, frowning, open his mouth, but Nat spoke first.

"Every second I don't have a line in the water is a second I don't even have a chance of catching this fish."

Mr. Fiji and Haito both looked up, surprise outlaying their expressions. Neither pandaren had ever heard the short spoken, often drunkenly blunt Nat Pagle ever speak like that.

"Well, still..." Mr. Fiji said, setting the basket down on the sand. "At least eat and drink something!"

Nat, his face full of fierce conviction, gave an excited glance over at the mention of _drink_.

Somehow, Mr. Fiji eventually talked the two into reluctantly letting Nat down from the tree. But even as he ate and drank around a small beach fire, Nat kept a hand tight and firm around the bamboo rod.

"So. No luck today, boys?" Mr. Fiji said, slurping half-warm dinner porridge from a shallow wooden bowl.

"We didn't catch a piece of coral." Haito spat. "If there was a single turtle fish out there, the mantid beat us to it."

Nat said nothing, drinking from a cask with one hand while brandishing the rod in the other. Mr. Fiji turned his gaze to the human, looking at him over the firelight. "Maybe you could try for _other _fish? What does one fish really mean, afterall?"

"Absolutely nothing." Nat said, honest about it. "It doesn't matter if we catch this fish or not, it's just a fish." he leaned back, tipping his head to guzzle down the last of the cask. "But if there's one of those fish still out there, we're going to catch it."

Mr. Fiji glanced back to Haito, who just sat, staring empty-eyed into the gentle glows of the dying camp fire. He just shrugged in agreeance with Nat's words.

Mr. Fiji chuckled.

It was going on two weeks now and there had been not so much as a nibble on the end of Nat's line. The days were growing longer, the sun burning hotter. Nat could barely pull himself up in the mornings, every muscle in his body ripping under the daily strains.

But where others would have suffered dire blows to morale and resorted to in-fighting, Nat and Haito only went about their days ever quicker and more effecient. To maximize chances, Haito began to chum the waters with pieces of the fermented bamboo bait that he had crushed into thick, chunky paste with rocks. The smell, once impossible for Nat to bear, had soon become as secondary as his heartbeats. Haito took the boat out into the water, chumming here and there, before finally dropping out Nat's line in the darkest, deepest water possible. After the water was chummed and the line was set out, it was back to shore to secure Nat to the tree.

Then came the waiting.

John had visited several times, warning Nat about how he had "_that look about him again_". Nat had been driven to extremes before in order to catch a fish. Once, he spent two nights sleeping in the corpse of large mammoth calf to keep warm on the icey plains of Northrend, just to prove you _could_, with the right baits, catch fish that suffered the plauge of undeath. He had endured weeks out at sea alone in what was left of a life raft to catch the very sea snake that downed the vessel he'd escaped from. He still used a section of the ribcage as a keg rack.

He never knew just what it was, this sudden drive to produce a fish on the end of his line. It was a spontaneous, unavoidable obsession that couldn't be ran from. He just had to man up, grab his booze, and keep putting a line in the water until he caught the object of this unexplainable compulsion so he could focus on what everything was really all about: getting drunk and pretending to fish.

Now, here he was. Somewhere at the bottom of the world, baking under sun and steam, the heat of the hot sands below him drifting up to cook him alive on his tree. He wasn't sure just how he would do it, but somehow he was going to turn all this effort and strife into a fish. Nothing else mattered until then.

His chin, rough with dirty, unshaven hair, itched. He tried brushing it against his shoulder, but couldn't reach the paticular spot. It was maddening, knowing he couldn't scratch an itch. Worse still that he knew he could just have himself untied and do it quick, but that would waste precious seconds. The itch could wait.

Haito sighed. "It's been four days." he said, grumbling as he picked himself up out of the sand. "The bait should probably be changed."

He untied Nat, who was unhappy to be breaking so quickly after waking up. Sighing and huffing to himself beneath his breath, Haito pushed out from the shore in the boat and rowed out a short ways to begin pulling in line. On his end, Nat was reeling the line up, trying to stretch his stiff back out a bit but recieving only shots of tight pain for his efforts.

The bait had fallen almost entirely apart in the water, the once several inches long piece of foul bamboo now only a small tatter clung to a hook. Haito rowed back in, and marched with the hook in his hand over to his sealed pot. He sat down and uncorked to the top so he could slide his arm down into the clay bait jug. Nat sat on the sand, drinking from a flask.

Haito rummaged his arm about in the jug for awhile, his face furrowing deeper and deeper, until with a quiet curse he pulled his arm out of the jug and looked directly inside.

Then, he gasped. "No!" he shouted. Nat, rose instantly, staring at the pandaren as he shouted in protest again before kicking the pot clear into the leaves of the jungle.

"What's wrong?" Nat asked, already aware of what had just happened.

"We are out of bait." Haito said through clenched teeth, his eyes shut tight as he looked down into the sand, his hands balled into fists. As if he were clenching his body tight in order to summon up all his fury, he exploded.

Kicking the sand in futility, he stomped back and forth, cursing and shouting out all. "How?!" he yelled. "How can the bait be gone so quickly?!" he slapped his hands across his face, calming his raging storm down slightly.

"I spent _so long _keeping that bait prepared." he explained to himself. "It was our best chance!"

Nat turned away from the skulking, seething pandaren, and looked across the ocean. The ocean was so immeasurably immense, an infinity for fish to hide within. Only to be caught when luck landed your line infront of a fish, and the fish decided you had earned a try. Bait was a fisherman's secret, ultimate weapon. It was a way to equalize those impossible odds, to try drawing out a fish _to _you, rather than relying on always landing within the fish's vicinity.

Now they had exhausted that weapon.

Nat, believed at least, he had hooked a turtle fish all that time ago on just raw fruit. Haito insisted that the fermented bamboo would do the trick, and Nat actually did not doubt the surly old pandaren. Ultimately, they just never landed a hook close enough to any turtle fish. If any turtle fish even existed anymore, that was.

By his own accord, Nat's feet began trudging towards the forest, where the empty jug had been kicked. Haito ignored him, sitting in the sand to wallow in their inadequecy. Nat reached the jungle leaves, and brushed them aside. There, he saw the jug sitting, a bent, scaly figure sniffing over it.

The saurok darted its eyes up to Nat, and hissed with bared teeth. "Give me that." Nat said, pointing at the jug.

"Take it!" the saurok said, fanning a clawed hand before its stout reptilian nose. "Get it out of here!"

Nat, smirking, reached down to retrieve the jug. The suarok darted off, back into the dark jungle. Looking up, Nat found he was standing under a low tropical fruit tree. Large, red fruit hung at the tops of some of the trees, and below him, scattered about the jungle floor, lay other fruit.

Most were rotting and mushy, but Nat picked out one that was just past ripe. Picking it up, he quickly cut a piece from it and then slathered the small fruit slice around the inside of the jug, coating it in the awful goo.

He walked back to their fishing spot, picked up the abandoned hook from the ground and baited it. Nat began reeling the line in. A startled Haito glancing up, his melancholy interrupted, scuffled his nose. "Forget it, Nat Pagle!" he said. "There are no turtle fish left! We've wasted our times." Haito's head fell back towards the ground. "I've wasted even more time."

Nat just flung the bait out, a perfect cast that sent the entire length of the line zooming out across the horizon. His best cast yet. Then, he just stood there.

Fishing truly was a test of endurance, patience and above all, one's own apititude for stupid luck. They were uninvited guests, the fisherman, slinking into a world too deep and dark and cold for them to ever understand. They sat back in the world they knew, hiding behind a thin line with a small hook with maybe a little bit of bait on it. Those among them that could boast as being one of the best were, in reality, just those that kept a line in the water the longest. Then, once a fish came along that caught the end of their line, they'd reel it in and convince themselves that they were the one that did the catching.

For Nat, fishing had always meant two things: money and beer. Whether he fished to dodge real work or fished to get even richer it was always the money and it was always the beer. Sure, sometimes there was an occasional anomoly, an embarassing moment in time where he became rigidly devoted to fishing, or unsatisfied with a lack of challenge. But Pandaria was a pretty land. He was enjoying himself here. The beer was great, the locals were more than hospitable and the fishing was fair.

All he had to do was catch this damn turtle fish and stop worrying about it.

He'd invested months now into catching this fish. The closest he'd ever gotten so far was a possible encounter with one on his hook followed by seeing what was left of a corpse. Nothing dictated that he should, or ever could, get even a real chance at catching one. Only determination and luck.

He had the determination, he had it in spades. Now where was the luck?

Haito was trudging towards the boat, tossing camp supplies into it, making ready to ship back out to the wharf. Nat shut his eyes, and let the blankness wander. He imagined seeing the bait, yards and yards out in the ocean water, floating underneath the waves. Tossing and turning in thick atmosphere, bumping now and again into deep reef beds or perhaps against the occasional passing fish.

How many hours had he spent so far, fishing for this turtle fish? A fish so archaic and outdated that it seemed like a myth, only to be cruelly validated as fact by chances that were out of Nat's reach. How many hours, if ever, would have yet to be spent before something could come out of all of this?

Where was the luck?

"Nat Pagle, end this. It's over." Haito insisted, his voice frusterated, angry and worn out. Nat just stood, looking deep out at the ocean.

"Nat Pagle!" Haito called again, tapping a pawed foot impatiently.

Nat sighed. It wasn't exactly his pole, afterall. He wondered how many hundrends, how many thousands, of years might pass before that ever elusive blind, dumb fisherman's luck landed someone a legend.

He pulled the bamboo rod to reel it in, but the line wouldn't budge. Instead, it grew taut. Nat gave a slight tug, but it was like pulling against the bottom of the ocean. There was no response, just a completely dead weight. Then, a response tug that was slight in force but still strong enough to nearly jerk Nat forward.

"Nat Pagle..." Haito said, growing still more impatient but now curious at Nat's expression as he attempted to reel the line in. The pandaren looked over at the line, which was pulled straight and tight.

Another tug suddenly forced Nat to buckle his arms and hold on tight, the pressure becoming consistant and mounting by the second. Nat turned to Haito.

"Get the rope!"

Haito, without another word, rushed to oblige. Nat slowly, slowly, backed his way up the tree, desperately twisting and turning in order to eek out every single hair of line he could get as he worked his way to the tree.

"Don't go too fast, Nat! Don't spook it! _Don't spook it!_" was all he could hear in his mind, the thoughts silent but still bursting inside his skull.

"_Don't spook it!_"

Finally he felt his heels touch the rough, hard root of the tree. He managed to back up just far enough to barely get his back touching the bark, and Haito quickly set to work tying the man up. Haito was in an excited rush, but the old pandaren still quickly worked the rope around the Nat and three with dexterity. Soon enough, Nat was fighting for breath as his body was crushed by the ropes, the weight on the end of his line pulling him into the itchy coils.

But he was holding, now, and the pressure began to slowly let off to become an even force. While it didn't let up for a second, it at least wasn't growing anymore. Yet. Nat wasn't entirely sure what to do next, how was he to tire the fish out, when he couldn't even bring it in an inch?

It fell into a brutal stalemate of tug and war. Either side going nowhere, Nat's body slowly breaking under the strain. Without noticing right away, Nat felt Haito's thick furry arms slide overtop his, the pandaren gripping onto the rod just above Nat's hold. Now man and pandaren were perched on the tree, pulling back as hard as they could against the weight of an entire sea.

For all the stress, the rod and line made no sounds. The bamboo was pulled as taught as the line, but made not even the slightest of creaks as it was abused.

Finally, a change happened in their struggle, and though both fisherman were happy for a change, it asserted that it was definently the fish that was in control. The line began to run to the left as the fish started to swim. To the left it went, further and further, until the bamboo rod actually began to bend. Soon, the fish had run so far that the bamboo was almost a perfect fold over Nat's fingers. Crushing his tender digits, the bamboo made no signs of being under any pressure.

Haito was, almost comically, trying to pull the rod in the opposite direction, but the fish decided the rules and it did not budge from its position, the rod stuck like a lock. Nat was wincing at the pain in his fingers, almost certain the bones had to be crushed, but he did not let go. Not letting go was quite literally all he could do, there was no pulling back on the line.

Until, there actually was a slight lax. On instinct, Nat immediately pulled back with all his strength, determined to gain a quick inch, but perhaps going lax was just the fish's way of toying with them, for as soon as his guard was let momentarily down, the fish tore back out again, causing Nat's shoulders to snap in pain. Thankfully, though, this ment the bamboo was not folded directly over his fingers, though they were oozing with deep, not-quite-numb-enough pain.

The fish must have decided it had enough of the hook and line, for now the pressure was mounting again and Nat was being crushed in the ropes. He began to scream, but did not let go. Haito, falling off of the root, frantically tried to think of anything he could do. In a stressed moment of thought, Haito ran behind the tree and started to dig at its roots in the sand, revealing the wet tendrils from underneath the earth.

Between the pulling and the digging, the tree began to lurch forward just a bit, the fish pulling it from its hold. The tree stayed fast in the ground, but was now leaning noticeably forwards towards the ocean. This relieved quite a bit of the crushing weight, however, and soon Nat was shaking his head clear, redoubling his efforts to hold onto the rod.

The fish kept pulling and pulling and pulling, its strength never failing, only giving into short voluntary reprieves that did little to give Nat anytime to recover. The tree groaned and cracked, tiny clouds of sand exploding from underneath it as some roots were pulled from the ground entirely, others were simply broken into pieces as the tree leaned ever further and further forward.

Haito was making a worthless effort to hold the roots down, pulling on them with all of his weight. He actually let his feet off the ground, hanging free, but it did no good. He wasn't young enough or strong enough anymore; he wasn't even _fat_ enough. The tree was being pulled further and further from the ground and soon enough it would topple completely over, either crushing Nat to death outright or pulling him out to sea to drown.

"I can not do this alone!" he grunted out, his hands wrenching around the hard tree roots.

The tree lurched back his way a bit, the wood giving a deep whine as roots set back into their hollows. He looked to his side, where Mr. Fiji was now pulling from the roots, aiding his strength and weight to the pull.

"Fiji...?" Haito said through his teeth. "You're here?"

"I just came out to bring you two some lunch!" Mr. Fiji exclaimed through a grunt or two of his own.

"Forget the lunch!" both pandaren heard a strained Nat shout from the other side of the tree.

The fish pulled even harder, the bamboo rod begin to buckle ever so slightly in Nat's fists. Haito and Mr. Fiji, mustering their strength, both leaped off the ground and pulled down as hard as they could, the tree finally setting back down halfway fully.

As the tree slammed back down and the pandaren tumbled off of it, Nat felt another moment of slack on the line, but this time it didn't instantly snap back into tight pressure. Seizing his oppourtunity, Nat opened two weary, blood-shot eyes and worked the rod up and around the line twice. He had won line.

He had so much more to go.

The fish ran, this time to the right, but stopped short of bending the rod in two. Then it ran to the left. Then, it took to the right away.

"_It's starting to panic._" Nat thought. "_It's trying to shake the line._"

The more it paniced, the more it grew tired. Nat braced himself.

The fish stopped its running and returned to trying to apply an ever-increasing strain of force on the line. Nat felt his body stretch and pull towards the undeniable force, crushing on the rope. The tree lurched once again, and the two pandaren, still panting from their earlier exertion, lept onto it, trying to pull it back down by the roots as they tipped into the air.

But this time, the fish was showing a new sign: growing desperation.

With its strength reinforced with the seeds of desperation, the fish pulled harder than ever. The tree gave off sounds of wood being strained mixed with wood giving out, and loud snaps shot off in the roots still remaining in the ground as the tree fell ever forward, unstoppable despite the pandaren's best efforts.

Finally, with one last pop of root and one last dust cloud of wet wooden smoke, the tree fell forward.

Nat opened his eyes to find himself face to face with the water, his hands still tight on the rod, the pressure now daring to pull him straight forward. The fish began to run again, and Nat screamed again as his arms were forced to twist into angles they weren't _supposed_ to twist into as he kept hold of the line in his new, compromied position. The fish had defeated the tree, and Nat had lost his point of vantage.

Nat could no longer see his line, but from the feel of it, it seemed as if the fish was rounding back towards the shore. A mistake. Nat devoured the slack on the line, adding it to his rod as he shortened the line between himself and the fish. A splinter popped off the bamboo rod.

"Nat! Nat!" Haito called, stumbling over the fallen trunk.

Nat gave an unintelligable blurb of words in response. Mr. Fiji sighed with relief as he fell to his hands in the sand, looking under the tree to find Nat, still in his ropes, fighting against the fish.

"What can we do?!" Haito asked himself, unsure of what could possibly be done next. Beside him, the tree was hissing in the sand, the dry bark sliding against the course sand and dirt beneath it, beginning to slip out into sea.

With a desperate grumble, Haito shouted, "Fiji! Roll the tree over!"

Mr. Fiji jumped to his feet, looking towards his old friend. Facing the water like he was, Nat would soon be pulled into the ocean.

"We must untie him!" Mr. Fiji protested.

"No!" Haito called back, already fruitlessly at work, trying to roll over the impossibly heavy tree.

"Untie him!" Mr. Fiji repeated, beginning to work at undoing the rope knots.

"_No!_" came a second call, but this time it was not from Haito. On the other side of the tree, being brought closer and closer to becoming submerged under the waves, Nat denied to be untied from the trunk.

Mr. Fiji fumbled for a moment, helpless against the protest. With a sigh of frusteration and defeat, he leapt over the fallen tree and began heaving along with Haito, attempting to roll the tree. With a sudden lurch, the trunk jolted forward several feet, throwing the two pandaren to the ground.

"This isn't working!" Mr. Fiji cried as he rolled himself up from the sand, frantically brushing off his face.

Haito cursed and rested an arm on the tree, thinking what they could possibly do to stop the tree from pulling out into the water. Then, with a gasp, he recalled a crucial detail.

"Nat!"

Practically dropping to his stomach, Haito fell to the ground and peered under the tree. Nat's head was inches from the water, some of the lapping waves breaking high enough to hit the fisherman's face. Nat, however, was silently at struggle with the fish, and Haito noticed that Nat had managed to wrap a few more inches of line around the bamboo rod. Another tiny lurch in the tree, and Nat's head was a tiny bit closer to being submerged under water.

Haito pulled himself up and rushed to the end of the trunk, where the dirt-stained roots were being raked slowly into the sand. As the tree was pulled across the sand, more of the beach began to build up infront of the roots, causing more resistance and slowing the turtle fish's pull.

But sand was fickle, and another lurching tug caused a bit of the pile to shake loose, winning the fish more precious space before the sand fell in on itself and held solid once again. Within minutes, the tree would simply be taken out to sea, with Nat tied fast to it.

"We need time!" Haito shouted, pounding the tree with balled fists.

He looked up, feeling the situation was beyond helpless. Underneath his fists, he could feel the bark sliding ever so slowly but ever so consistantly. Soon, they would be forced to untie Nat, and then, after so many long years, he'd submit defeat yet again...

He imagined rowing back to the wharf, surrounded by carefree fisherman who didn't even understand his loss, who went about their lives of drinking and fishing without ever aspiring to do anything worth _remembering. _Not like him, not like Haito.

Rowing back, in their boat.

Haito's eyes shot wide. The _boat_.

He lept over the trunk, rushing over to the wooden canoe. It still had some supplies and various other things littering the wooden floor. Rolling the whole boat over and dumping everything out, Haito spun the boat back over and pulled it as quickly as he could towards the tree.

"Fiji!" he shouted as he mustered all his strength to shove the boat under the tree, poking the far end of the ship out the other side. "Help me flip it!"

"What?" Mr. Fiji questioned.

"Hurry!"

Flustered but obeying, Mr. Fiji grabbed his end of the boat and together the pandaren twisted it over in the sand, just below Nat's feet.

"We need to weigh it down, to the sand!" Haito shouted, jumping on the the smooth, rounded bottom of the boat.

Mr. Fiji wasn't quite sure just what Haito was planning, but he obliged and sat on his end as well, their combined weight sinking the boat slightly into the stirred sands before it hit solid sand and held firm in the beach.

The tree now slid overtop the boat, and as it grew closer to the sea, the tighter the tree became to the surface of the boat's bottom. Behind them, they heard Nat coughing and splashing as his head began to sink under the waves.

"Nat!" Mr. Fiji cried.

"Push up!" Haito shouted back.

The tree was now bearing down on the boat, its roots so close that they were nearly pulled all the way to the wooden dingy, and the pressure was causing the frail vessel to creak and snap under the pandaren.

But the boat was holding together, and as the tree slid further onto it, it began to leverage out, its front end easing up out of the sea, water-soaked leaves and branches creating the audio of a heavy rainstorm as the tree reemerged. Haito, and now Mr. Fijis, collective push on the trunk added to the effect, and the tree began to rise straighter and straighter into the air, its roots now spearing back into the sand.

Somehow, between the boat, the buildup of sand, and the tree's own roots holding fast, they had managed to left Nat and the trunk back up and stop the fish's constant pull. Haito and Mr. Fiji sat, exhausted and aching. Haito started to laugh, and Mr. Fiji, with a smirk and shake of his head, joined his old friend. They had done it.

Another lurch sent them both tumbling forward. The boat snapped almost in half and the tree tipped forward once again. The turtle fish was far from spended.

But the tree, for now, was still holding. They still had time. From his bonds on the trunk, Nat kept working the rod, following the fish's runs and applying a constant force of his own pressure. They still had Nat.

This was unlike anything the three had ever encountered or fought against before. It was not merely a contest between physical and mental stamina, or a test of the resilience of a fisherman's gear, it was a battle against time itself as the fish's immense strength ripped roots from earth and threatened to pull tree and fisherman away.

Another small chip popped off of the bamboo rod and flicked Nat so hard on the soft flesh above his eye that he could feel a cool trickle of blood run down the side of his head. He completely ignored it as he worked yet another revolution of his rod around his line, stealing another half an inch or so away from the fish.

He could hardly breath at this point, each enflation of his lungs felt like two hot knives were being pressed into his chest, and exhaling felt like the knives were suddenly ripped out, their burning tips always resting on his chest, ready to sink back in on his next breath.

He wanted to cough, but coughing simply hurt _too much_ so he fought back the scratching demands and focused on following the fish. He thought he tasted blood on the back of his tongue, but couldn't quite tell because his nose had been burnt by the salty water that invaded his nostrils and threatened to be his end. His head was past pain, and all he felt was a strange empty bubble pushing out against the inside of his skull, filled with a white haze that kept trying to steal away his consciousness.

The fish darted in for another quick pass closer to the shore. Nat reacted on motor skill alone and twisted his bamboo rod around the slack.

To hunt so relentlessly, to spend so many hours casting out lines that bore no result. To bake under the sun, the monotony and endless waiting broken only by the thousands of repititions that were reeling in and casting back out again.

To fail now was impossible. It could not happen. He was Nat Pagle. He had an entire series of merchandise with his name on it. He once won a drinking contest with a dwarf that only ended when the dwarf died of alcohol poisoning.

Another twist of the rod around the line. Another bit of space snatched from the fish. Another tiny flake bursting off the strained bamboo.

Once, when he was adventuring in the Dustwallow Marsh and ran out of fish to catch, he got so drunk that he still held the record for largest (and only) murloc caught on a fishing rod.

He fought against his own arms to push against the strength of the fish, bringing in another two winds of line.

He wrote a book where more than half the pages were just gibberish he plagerized from a history book on legendary swords and it _still_ sold more copies than the entire population of every major city combined.

More slack. Nat added it to his line instantly. The fish couldn't keep pulling against so much weight. It was getting tired. Like an electrical pulse, Nat felt a second wind rush through his body. Though quivering with exhaustion and pulsing in aching pain, Nat pulled the rod into him, and through strength alone wound the line further around the rod. He was winning.

He was _Nat Pagle. _More people knew his name than they knew the Lich King's. Who was this 'turtle fish'? A scribble on some old piece of paper?

He was working the rod around and around, pulling in foot after foot of line. There was a tight pull that stopped his advance as the fish, in desperation, was hitting its own second wind. The tree shifted slightly in its precarious new hold, but held firm and did not move an inch towards the water.

Haito stood, dumbfounded as he watched Nat actually begin taking line. He smiled without thinking about it. They were _winning_.

The fish was holding firm, the constant and unchanging pressure once again taking a steady hold on the end of his line. Sometimes, when fishermen were growing to the end of their rope and when all practical and sensible avenues had been exhuasted, they would turn to _other_ ways of securing their catch. Observing local customs and rituals, doing anything they could to refresh their minds and renew themselves, becoming one with traditions and superstitions thousands of generations old.

Nat Pagle was not one of those fishermen.

"Come on, you sissy!" he screamed, dry drops of copper raining down on his tongue. "Come on!"

His chest, his head, his throat, his whole body. Everything felt like it was being compressed and smashed flat against the tree. His eyes shut tight and he swore he saw red bolts of lightening crack across the darkness. He heaved out another scream, an inaudible skreech like an explosion of pent up frusteration and exhaustion. The bamboo cracked in his hands, but held. It was all down to this.

It felt like he had moved a boulder. The line went lax and he began reeling it around his rod, then the line simply seemed to lose all pressure or force. There was still weight, and there was still resistance, but it was an empty resistance. Like all he was doing was hauling the weight in, no more fighting from its end.

A few small vibrations rattling up the line were the only signs that anything living was still on his line. He didn't slow down a bit as he wrapped more and more line around the bamboo rod. Until...

From the near horizon, a shape rose. Cresting from the water, it was a long, broad green-tinged hill, gliding on the water, being pulled closer and closer to shore. The pandaren stood in complete awe as the fleshy landmass grew closer, taking on more defined shape and attribute.

John yawned as he cast out yet another line into the water. Nat had been gone for awhile, now. He was beginning to wonder how he'd write word back that Nat had been killed when one of the pandaren fisherman beside him spit out the beer he had been sipping on and gasped.

"What is _that_?!" the pandaren said, leaping to his feet.

John looked up and choked on a second yawn.

Other fishermen had noticed too, and soon the entire wharf was crowded to one side, gasping and awing at what they were seeing. From a wet rock reaching out of the water, the jinyu sat, its empty eyes staring at the spectacle.

A huge island, no, it was a _fish, _was being drug across the water. It was far off on the horizon, but even so far away it was large enough to make out. How big was this creature?

"Nat Pagle you crazy son of a!" John shouted, jumping up and shooting a fist to the air.

The fishermen became a buzz of whispers. "_It's Nat Pagle! He caught that!_" "_What is that thing? Did Nat Pagle catch the biggest fish in the sea?_" "_It's bigger than a whale!_" "_No it's not!_" "_It's huge!_" "_What is it?_"

The battle was short, but Nat had never experienced such a raw struggle before. His vision was already clouding over, even as the last of the line was wrapped around his rod and a creature straight from a legend broke shore and beached itself upon the sand.

One of the pandaren, Nat wasn't sure who, cut his ropes. Nat fell from the tree, rolling hard onto the ground. Sand and blood mixed in his mouth and he spat them out as he fought to his knees, looking over his catch. It was massive, its flat circular body so thick that he couldn't even see over it. Its flops were weak and barely moved its titanic bulk but even then they were powerful enough to make the ground beneath them rattle slightly.

He crawled over to the fish, dropping the bamboo rod, which fell into pieces as it struck the ground. All the weeks, all the hours of nothing had been turned into this. He reached out a trembling hand and touched the beast. Then he threw up.

Coughing and sputtering, he rolled over and landed on the fish. Man and fish lay there, their bodies sore and immovable in the sun. Nat was facing the Pandaria mainland, and from far off, overtop a steep hill on the distant horizon, Nat saw a figure move.

It was tall and its body was lithe and smooth but still very powerful. It cocked its large, insectoid head at Nat, and Nat could feel it staring down his catch. Then, without another word or motion, the mantid leapt off- dissapearing into a patch of long, leafy bamboo stalks.

"Mister Nat!" came a cry as Mr. Fiji's happy, grinning face shot before Nat's. "You aren't going to die of exhaustion yet, are you? Not before we celebrate your catch!"

"_Our_ catch." Haito said, rolling his eyes as he carefully picked up the pieces of his rod from the sand.

Nat thought he said something, but wasn't quite sure, before his entire vision clouded over in haze, and he passed out, his body laying on the great, slimey turtle fish.

Nat was told he woke up later that night for the party, but if he did, he didn't remember anything between passing out on the fish and waking up a couple of days later.

In the end he broke six fingers on either hand, had five crushed ribs, a broken toe, snapped a collar bone in half and, somehow, cracked the bone of his left elbow into five seperate pieces. Getting excessively drunk at the party probably didn't help the situation, but the pandaren had treated him and cast over his broken body parts with large, flat leaves soaked in an ointment that he was assured would hyper-accelerate bone regrowth. He wasn't sure he was completely comfortable with the description of "_hyper-accerlated bone regrowth_" but the pandaren seemed to know what they were doing. Mostly.

Besides, he could still fish and drink, so he could bear a few weeks of otherwise downtime. Overlooking the wharf were the massive pieces of turtle fish, curring on hooks in the sun. All in all, his fish weighed over eight-thousand pounds and measured in at some forty-feet across. Not too shabby, he decided. All things considered.

Beside him, John was bringing in another shark. John had, ultimately, been unimpressed with his friend's catch. The "turtle fish" had nowhere near enough teeth to be a fish worth catching.

"So, Mister Nat." Mr. Fiji said, settling into comfortable chair next to Nat. "I never got an honest answer from you, you know."

"What's that?" Nat replied, absent mindedly as he reeled in his line, a colorful fish flopping on his hook.

"Why did you come to Pandaria?"

Nat sighed the best he could. "To do a job." he repeated.

"Do you really have any attention of _ever_ getting back into contact with your benefactor?" Mr. Fiji asked, a coy and knowing smile on his face.

"Eventually." Nat lied.

The two were quiet for a few minutes, nothing but the atmosphere of the Pandaria coast enveloping them. When Nat had first arrived in this land, he found a continent that was doused in an energy that he did not belong in. Toils and hardships in a place he'd never even seen before, but had endured and conquered anyways. Now here he was, bandaged up, sipping beer and feeling something he hadn't quite felt for some years now; content.

Haito had completely remade the record paper of the turtle fish. Now it was a full, detailed illustration, with properly recorded facts and information. It was a shame none of them were enviromentalist enough to spare the great fish, but hey, it was science or it was dinner. Haito had added a new entry, as well, that read simply,

"_Nat Pagle, honored fisherman from beyond the mist, proved himself by catching a turtle fish._"

From far up on the wharf, standing outside the great lodge, Haito looked down upon the two fisherman, and all the other outsiders who were now fishing from his wharf. People of all races and faction and creed; hulking orc next to stout dwarf. Colors of red and blue mixed together as faction warfare and the events transpiring out upon the shore were momentarily forgotten and thrown aside, as everyone just enjoyed themselves to get drunk and fish.

He looked up at the huge pieces of drying fish. It had taken an entire day of hard labor for the wharfsmen to carve it up and haul it out. All of them in awe at the 'old fisherman' Haito's hand in bringing the massive beast in. He smirked.

Haito fell into a longing sigh. There was good with the bad. Perhaps in time, the good would prove to be worth it. He turned and entered the lodge, where he had been busying himself with hanging up his old, broken bamboo rod on a display frame. How long ago had he plucked it from the bamboo gardens and fashioned it into a rod? How many years passed before it finally achieved what he had made it for all that time ago?

The sounds of shouts and commotion came from outside. Haito perked up and listened. "Another shark!" John was shouting, before a loud splash followed by cheers and laughter.

"Someone pull him out!" another voice called over the laughter.

Haito shook his head and laughed.

Perhaps...

"So." Mr. Fiji said as the two sat, watching John haul his newest catch onto the docks as the wharf cheered him on. "What are you going to next, Mister Nat?"

Nat sat silent for a second before flicking his line back out into the water. Breathing in the air, the land, the essence of Pandaria and everything he had encountered on his long, strange trip.

"I'm going to do what I came here to do." Nat said, winking at his pandaren friend as he popped open another wooden jug.

"I'm going to catch fish and get drunk."


	2. Chapter 2

Ahahaah this chapter is a shameless bump


End file.
